ViroGates has, over the past week, signed two exclusive distribution deals with carefully selected partners to market its suPARnostic® kit in Europe. Ramcon A/S will cover the home markets of Denmark and Sweden and INyDIA Biomedical will cover two further European markets – Spain and Portugal. ViroGates is in discussion with other potential European partners and is also preparing a product launch in Asia and Africa, where suPARnostic® provides an affordable and practical solution for resource-poor settings.
suPARnostic® was invented and developed in Denmark and South Africa and was originally intended to be a tool for monitoring HIV progression and treatment response, but has during its development revealed amazing potential as a prognostic tool in other infectious diseases including tuberculosis and sepsis. These are areas where there is no proven solution: In sepsis, people are dying in the absence of a tool to assess how fatal their condition is; in tuberculosis, there is no tool to show if lengthy treatment is working. Clinical results in these indications have proven that suPARnostic® can help save lives and thus facilitates great interest of international distribution partners. In research settings, suPARnostic® has already been in use since 2006, with great success at Hvidovre Hospital in Denmark and in various locations in Africa.
“suPARnostic® is a novel solution to serve the world – a tool that addresses an open demand in many lifethreatening infectious diseases”, says Betina Macho, CEO, ViroGates. “Thus the interest is extremely high from all sides and we will continue to execute further distribution agreements over the coming months. suPARnostic® has a huge sales potential; in its current form as an offline tool, expectations are in the doubledigit million Euro range. Next steps for ViroGates include expansion of suPARnostic®’s applicability by developing it for point-of-care solutions.”
Also eager to comment on the commercial launch were representatives from the new partners: “We have been working with ViroGates for a while now to introduce the suPARnostic® in Spain and Portugal. This could easily be one of the most significant biomarkers of our time and it is exciting to have the opportunity to represent this product on the market“, says Inigo Yandiola, Managing Director of INyDIA Biomedical. Dr. Henrik Tommerup, Sales Manager for Ramcon comments: “We are thrilled to introduce the suPARnostic® kit to a wider audience. Already established locally in the clinic and in medical research, Ramcon now aims to expand the use of suPARnostic®, which can be regarded as the next generation CRP biomarker, and deliver great value for patient monitoring and prognosis.”
About ViroGates’ New Partners ViroGates exclusive distribution partner for Spain and Portugal is INyDIA Biomedical (www.inydia.com) - a well established local player with a clear track record in infectious diseases. This partner has been selected following a common seeding trial in Spain during the past year that yielded excellent results in sepsis. For Denmark and Sweden experienced distributor Ramcon A/S (www.ramcon.dk) has been signed on as exclusive partner; suPARnostic® is an excellent fit into Ramcon’s existing portfolio. Both agreements include sales commitments for the coming year.
About ViroGates ViroGates is an international biotech company headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. Originating from its own innovative research, ViroGates develops and distributes prognostic products for infectious disease management with a single goal in mind: To identify risk patients early and improve the lives of seriously infected people globally. The novel ViroGates method to monitor disease progression involves the measurement of a protein found in every individual known as soluble urokinase Plasminogen Activator Receptor (suPAR). High levels of suPAR are indicative of poor patient health or disease outcome. Measuring suPAR serves to evaluate a patient’s progression in many different infectious diseases including HIV, Sepsis and Tuberculosis. The first commercial product based on this technology, suPARnostic®, is a blood-based test kit that provides a simple, cost-effective and highly transportable monitoring tool for suPAR, whose use ensures that the right patients receive the right treatment at the right time. The test kit holds the CE/IVD Mark.
Further Information Please contact Betina Macho, CEO (+45 6035 3340 or bm@virogates.com).
