APLEX Bio

Making advanced molecular testing available to everyone

What is the Challenge?

For over 30 years PCR testing has been used as the “gold standard” diagnostic tool to detect and diagnose certain infectious diseases and genetic changes. These three letters have indeed shot into the public consciousness since PCR is the basis of the most common tests for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. But, when a high number of pathogens/variants need to be detected in a single sample, costly and labor-intensive tests are still the common solution. Missing or not detecting relevant biomarkers in molecular testing often leads to high costs, deriving from increased complexity in testing and analyzing, as well as prolonged time between results and treatment. The current pandemic has highlighted the need for routine highly multiplexed pathogen testing to distinguish covid from the common flu and even different viral variants – how can we find a cost-effective way to find these answers?

What is the Solution?

APLEX Bio is developing a new technology for molecular detection and diagnostics, enabling highly parallelized detection of biomarkers in a disruptively easy and cost-efficient way. Biomarker testing is used to find genes, proteins, and other substances that can provide information about for example viruses or cancer. APLEX Bio’s Hyperplex hpPCR technology is set to allow significantly simpler and faster genetic analysis directly than what is possible today. Current solutions are typically limited to around five simultaneous targets that can be analyzed at once, meanwhile APLEX Bio’s technology allows simultaneous probing of 10 – 100 of target molecules in one single test. As results are generated instantly, using conventional laboratory equipment, the need for sequencing or other complex solutions is avoided.

APLEX Bio’s technology utilizes nano and biochemistry, which enable a completely new generation of molecular techniques to facilitate applications from research to mass-scale in-vitro diagnostics and precision diagnostics. Biomarkers play a critical role in improving drug development processes as well as in larger biomedical research labs and enterprises. The technology can be applied, for example, to wastewater analysis to find viral, bacterial, and parasitic diseases, giving information about a whole population in a highly cost-effective way.

Latest