Braveheart Investment Group PLC (AIM:BRH) said upgrades to investment company Paraytec’s CX300 Covid diagnostic have indicated a five-fold improvement to its limit of detection.
The improvement follows initial testing by the University of Sheffield and Paraytec, with the next step to confirm this improvement on swab specimens from patients with new cases of Covid-19, said Braveheart.
Paraytec has designed a short prospective clinical study to evaluate the performance of CX300 against PCR and lateral flow tests and also to determine patient sample viral infectivity by culture on mammalian epithelial cells.
This trial, which will monitor positive patients daily for up to 10 days, will enable Paraytec to establish the performance of the device in determining the presence of infectious virus and is scheduled to start before the end of February.
Elsewhere, Paraytec's programme to develop a test for bacteraemia, which causes sepsis, is continuing to make progress with a work programme now underway.