Healthcare Technology Featured Article

October 18, 2010

Healthcare Technology and News: Xagenic Lands $300,000 from the Health Technology Exchange


Xagenic received $300,000 in financing from The Health Technology Exchange (HTX). Created by Dr. Shana Kelley, a professor at the University of Toronto with past commercialization experience, Xagenic is developing a rapid, point-of-care device for disease diagnosis.

This breakthrough technology will be used for giving relief to people suffering from infectious and genetic diseases, as well as help in the diagnosis of cancer. Both HTX and Xagenic expect that their technology may free people from tedious and labor-intensive methods (PCR) currently in use for molecular diagnostics and detection.

Commenting on this fund in a press release, Dr. Kelley said that this funding will aid Xagenic and its clinical development partner, the University Health Network (UHN) to confirm critical clinical sensitivity and specificity parameters for the technology.

 This development in medicine will deliver several benefits to Ontario as pointed out by UHN's Director of Infection Control, Dr. Michael Gardam. Gardam noted that the Xagenic platform may aid in the reduction of the spread, mortality and costs of infectious diseases by identifying those infections much earlier than other methods.

Although some tests are available in the market they are neither sufficiently fast nor cost-effective to be used in a screening capacity. The ultrasensitive, target-specific Xagenic's technology is cost-effective and does not require capital equipment in a centralized lab. 

As this technology can be easily multiplexed and automated, this increases throughput, and allows the technology to cover multiple infectious diseases. This project will allow Xagenic to create five Ontario jobs and more are anticipated as the company pursues commercialization.

"This is an important milestone for HTX: the Xagenic technology is the first to successfully pass our rigorous internal and third-party business, scientific and financial diligence, as well as being a collaboration between MaRS Innovation, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, and the Centre of Excellence for Commercialization of Research," said John Soloninka, president and CEO of HTX. "The HTX system is fully operational and Xagenic is the first of many innovative projects that are coming down the pipeline."


Anuradha Shukla is a contributing editor for HealthTechZone. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jaclyn Allard
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