QUOTIENT DIAGNOSTICS has launched the Quo-Test Point-of-Care System which marks a new phase in diabetes testing.
Some 200 million people worldwide are diagnosed as having diabetes and it is believed that over half the diabetics in the world still remain undiagnosed. According to Quotient’s CEO David Chatterton the trend is for both diagnosis and follow-up to be performed in special clinics, hence the development of Quo-Test. “We have drawn on our broad experience in both assay and instrument development to create an instrument that we are confident will have a major impact on diabetes care.”
Quo-Test exploits the so-called fluorescent quenching properties of a patented reagent to measure A1C in a way that matches the performance of existing laboratory-based methods. First, the fluorescence of a conjugate of boronic acid and a fluorophore is reduced (or “quenched”) on binding to cis–diol groups that are present on carbohydrates which are attached to haemoglobin molecules. By using solid state opto-electronic technology the Quo- Test desktop reader quantifies the concentration of A1C in the sample from this quenching effect. Secondly, the total amount of haemoglobin is quantified by absorption measurement. The combination of these two measures produces an A1C % result.
Quo-Test is a fully automated homogenous assay system – there are no separation steps and the system controls all the critical steps that may influence or affect the quality of the result.
