Licence agreement for TGR immunoassay technology

Adelaide biotechnology company TGR BioSciences has announced a European licence agreement with Prime Diagnostics, part of Wageningen UR in the Netherlands — a developer of high-quality diagnostics, technologies and services for the agricultural sector.

The licence agreement will provide non-exclusive access to TGR’s CaptSure technology for use in its immunoassay products for the agricultural sector. TGR will also provide antibody conjugation services, which will allow Prime Diagnostics to access the former’s antibody tagging and immobilisation technology.

In comparison to conventional assays, which usually involve three separate incubations over 2–3 days or more, CaptSure technology only requires a single incubation period and can be performed within an hour, without compromising sensitivity or quality. The simple and robust format of the technology is said to reduce the cost of labour in medium- and high-throughput screening laboratories and to deliver more flexibility for planning of QA/QC operations to the industry.

“Our tests, using CaptSure immunoassays to find key plant virus targets, have shown the TGR system to be sensitive and fast,” said Jose van Beckhoven, product manager, Prime Diagnostics.

“Prime Diagnostics is very pleased to be an early adopter of this technology to bring next-generation products to the potato, horticultural and ornamental industry for virus and bacteria detection.”