Platform Diagnostics is creating and developing platform technologies for the in-vitro diagnostics industry.

Company Background

Platform Diagnostics was a venture capital backed company established to develop low cost POC diagnostic devices based on Capillary Agglutination Technology (“CAT”). In CAT, a reagent combines with an analyte in a sample (blood, urine etc) and forms an agglutinate of larger molecules. The agglutinate acts to slow down the flow of the sample in micro-capillaries formed by precise moulding of a plastic ‘chip’. The original PDL concept failed technically, and although further technical work showed some promise, the company needed further financing to continue operations.

In 2007, Carclo and BBI Holdings plc (then quoted on AIM, but now owned by Inverness Medical Innovations inc. – the world leader in disposable POC tests) took over the financing and operations of PDL. PDL was converted into a holding company for the original IPR and ongoing development was undertaken by development teams within Carclo and BBI. Carclo led the hardware development – device design, moulding and surface treatments – BBI led the chemistry development which was based on reagent chemistry for the D-dimer test already owned by BBI.

After an initially slow start, as much of the PDL work had to be revalidated, recent progress has been excellent and we now have a proof of concept assay based on BBI’s proprietary chemistry.