Life Technologies and SATuRN Collaborate to Increase Access to HIV Testing in Africa

Informations

• Publié par: life-technologies-pr
• Nombre de lectures: 11
• Langue: English

Extrait

Life Technologies and SATuRN Collaborate to Increase Access to HIV Testing in Africa

PR Newswire CARLSBAD, California, July 24, 2012

- Life and Southern African Treatment and Resistance Network (SATuRN) Partner in Sequencing-Based Surveillance of Drug Resistance CARLSBAD, California,July 24, 2012/PRNewswire/ -- Life Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: LIFE ) today announced a collaboration with the Southern African Treatment and Resistance Network (SATuRN – http://www.bioafrica.net/saturn) on sequencing-based diagnostics for HIV- infected individuals inAfrica. Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs are becoming increasingly available in the developing world, due to facilitation by both governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as reductions in price and international trade restrictions by pharmaceutical companies. Resistance to these drugs develops in many HIV-infected individuals, however, and resistance is therefore coming to the forefront of the global health agenda. Resistance can be monitored by genetic sequencing of two viral genes, but current costs have made routine use prohibitive in most African countries. Life Technologies has developed together with SATuRN a simple-to-answer solution for ARV resistance testing, which is being made available to African partners at a highly economic cost per test. The test can be run on Life's Applied Biosystems line ofSangersequencing instruments, which are broadly installed in African hospitals and HIV-testing centers. The methods developed as part of this collaboration have the potential to become the most accurate and cost-effective method for the diagnosis of resistance pathogens inAfricaand the referral of patients for appropriate care. Thereasons for this are that the price of DNA/RNA genotyping is rapidly decreasing as technology is evolving at great speed, and the software applications to be used and further developed are all open source and available inAfrica(Dr. Tulio de Oliveira on behalf of SATuRN - Public HIV Drug Resistances Databases inAfrica, published in the journal NATURE 2010). "Drug resistance testing is an essential cornerstone of clinical practice in the developed world," said Ronnie Andrews, president of medical sciences at Life Technologies. "We are proud to partner with SATuRN to make resistance testing possible for a broad base of HIV-infected patients inAfrica." "We have trained 1,315 physicians and medical personnel on the interpretation of HIV drug resistance in southernAfrica. The region has more than 2 million patients on ARV treatment, and we believe that now is the time for the use genotyping technology to fight the battle against drug resistance," said Dr. Tulio de Oliveira, director of SATuRN and senior researcher at Wellcome Trust-Africa Centre. "This partnership with LIFE will allow more laboratories to use genotyping techniques, and large surveys on drug resistance to be produced to inform national department of health and policy makers in the region." Additional collaborators on the test development include the Stanford HIV Drug Resistance Database. Life Technoloies currentlmarkets its Alied Biosstems 3500 Caillar

Electrophoresis platform as an RUO product inthe United States; the platform is also CE-IVD approved inEurope. About Life Technologies Life Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: LIFE) is a global biotechnology company with customers in more than 160 countries using its innovative solutions to solve some of today's most difficult scientific challenges. Quality and innovation are accessible to every lab with its reliable and easy-to-use solutions spanning the biological spectrum with more than 50,000 products for agricultural biotechnology, translational research, molecular medicine and diagnostics, stem cell-based therapies, forensics, food safety and animal health. Its systems, reagents and consumables represent some of the most cited brands in scientific research including: Ion Torrent™, Applied Biosystems®, Invitrogen™,GIBCO®, Ambion®, Molecular Probes®, Novex®, and TaqMan®. Life Technologies employs approximately 10,400 people and upholds its ongoing commitment to innovation with more than 4,000 patents and exclusive licenses. LIFE had sales of$3.7 billionin 2011. Visit us at our website: http://www.lifetechnologies.com. Life Technologies' Safe Harbor Statement This press release includes forward-looking statements about Life Technologies' anticipated results that involve risks and uncertainties. Some of the information contained in this press release, including, but not limited to, statements as to industry trends and Life Technologies' plans, objectives, expectations and strategy for its business, contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Any statements that are not statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. When used, the words "believe," "plan," "intend," "anticipate," "target," "estimate," "expect" and the like, and/or future tense or conditional constructions ("will," "may," "could," "should," etc.), or similar expressions, identify certain of these forward-looking statements. Important factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are detailed in filings made by Life Technologies with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Life Technologies undertakes no obligation to update or revise any such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. About Southern African Treatment and Resistance Network (SATuRN) SATuRN is a consortium of virologists, clinicians, epidemiologists, bioinformaticians, policy makers, public health specialists and social scientists working on HIV treatment and care in southernAfrica. It currently includes 24 research and governmental partners in southernAfrica. SATuRN has developed an approach to virological failure clinical management that ensures the delivery of drug resistance genotyping and clinical management to remote clinics without them needing elaborate computer systems or infectious disease specialists on site. By applying telemedicine, off site laboratories, specialists and physicians from medical centres across the world can review cases, including clinical and resistance data, and give feedback and advice to the clinician managing the patient at the primary clinic. This system is useful for patient management and for the curation and annotation of drug resistance data. At present SATuRN has collated over 7,000 resistance genotypes linked to treatment and clinical information. The aim of SATuRN consortium is to foster international and regional collaboration into public health and research so as to

develop and implement innovative means of prevent and treat drug resistance in resource limited public health settings in southernAfrica. SATuRN looks at HIV drug resistance as a multi-disciplinary field and believes that drug resistance testing has an important role in clinical management, surveillance and research.

Life Technologies Contact Suzanne Clancy [phone] [phone] (mobile) [e-mail] SATuRN Contact Sonja Andrews [e-mail]