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Certest Biotec already has the prototype and hopes to ship it to China in two weeks. The country will have to validate it in positive samples before going on the market
The Aragonese company Certest Biotec, specialized in the clinical diagnosis of infectious pathologies, has designed a test to detect the new coronavirus that is devastating part of China and that, little by little, is beginning to spread to different countries. The prototype "has already been created and validated" in negative samples in Aragon, as Óscar Landeta, one of the founders of Certest Biotec, explained to this newspaper, and it is expected to be able to send the product to China in a couple of weeks. There they will have to test it on positive samples and, once they determine its effectiveness and the approval is given, the material can go on the market.
This project, "of urgent need", arises from the China Center for Infectious Diseases, which contacts Certest Biotec. «We work in more than 120 countries and in a not very large sector, so we have a certain reputation. China for us is a market where we move a lot and it was they who asked us to prepare a test for the coronavirus," explained Landeta. Specifically, the prototype has been included in a kit under the heading VIASURE 2019-nCoV Real Time PCR Kit. The test will allow the identification of the virus in people by taking a sample. The diagnosis is "highly reliable," Landeta said, and the results could be available within an hour.
Urgency / «We created the prototype in about three weeks. “We were faster because of the urgency,” he said. The company works with two types of technology: immunological and molecular biology. For this design, the latter was chosen, "because it is faster," he added.
Certest Biotec's experience in the sector makes them "very sure" of the product they have created. «We are knowledgeable about the technique and we do not usually fail. We are clear that the test is going to work, another thing is that the coronavirus evolves and the prototype has to be modified later," he noted.
For the validation to be "reasonable", Certest Biotec will send a "minimum" of 1.000 samples to China. "The company's intention is to meet the enormous demand in the Asian market, but if it is approved there we obviously hope to receive requests from all over the world."
