Genedrive awarded £484,000 grant by Innovate UK

Genedrive has been formally awarded an Innovate UK grant of £484,000 for the development of a disposable centrifuge-free plasma separation consumable device, the company announced on Tuesday.

The near patient molecular diagnostics company reported that it and its collaborators, NHS Tayside and the Univeristy of Dundee, will receive approximately £600,000 in funding of which Genedrive's share will account for £484,000, in correlation to costs it incurred over the periods to 30 June 2018 and 2019.

As announced alongside its preliminary results in October, the grant was conditionally granted to the company to support the future use of Genedrive's HCV ID Kit closer to a point of care setting.

David Budd, chief executive officer of Genedrive said: "This has the opportunity to be a very novel and impactful project and we are delighted that Innovate UK has chosen to support us. This device will aim to improve the applicability of the Genedrive HCV assay for closer to patient settings and would be a significant step forward in positioning the test for true decentralised diagnostics. Further, the device is anticipated to be independent from the Genedrive platform, opening the opportunity for other diagnostic instruments that need plasma as a starting point for blood borne viral testing."