Tm Bioscience test detects respiratory viruses including avian flu, SARS

By Angela McDaniels

Seattle, Nov. 2 - Tm Bioscience Corp. said it has developed a test prototype that detects all major human respiratory viruses, including avian flu and SARS corona.

The Upper Respiratory Infectious Disease Panel was developed though a collaboration with researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., the company said.

Tm Bioscience is in discussions with regulators, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, on preparing in vitro diagnostic submissions for expedited review and expects clinical evaluation to begin in the coming weeks.

The company said it plans to launch successive versions of the test. The first version detects and differentiates among various strains of respiratory syncitial virus, SARS corona virus, parainfluenza and influenza virus A/B including avian flu and will be available for evaluation by hospital-based laboratories and reference laboratories in early December

Subsequent versions of the test will be expanded to include additional viruses and may identify specific mutant variants of the avian flu that are capable of human-to-human transmission or that develop Tamiflu resistance.

The test operates on Luminex Corp.'s xMAP system, a well-established instrument found in many clinical laboratories.

"This now makes it possible to replace conventional lab tests, which are laborious and often take several days or weeks to produce a definitive result. The test will also assist public health authorities to avoid false alarms by determining which specific virus, if any, is present in a patient who is presenting flu symptoms," said Jim Mahony, director of the McMaster University Regional Virology and Chlamydiology Laboratory and president of the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology.

Tm Bioscience is a Toronto-based diagnostics company that develops genetic tests for genetic disorders, drug metabolism and infectious diseases.

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