Fusion Antibodies soars on Covid-19 test progress
Fusion Antibodies
3.80p
08:09 18/04/24
Fusion Antibodies shares soared after the antibody specialist said it had made progress on developing coronavirus antigen tests.
FTSE AIM All-Share
744.05
11:35 18/04/24
Health Care Equipment & Services
11,785.09
11:34 18/04/24
The company said it had advanced its efforts to design and validate coronavirus spike proteins. The antigens have been tested by external partners against patient blood samples and have 100% correlation with results from a leading certified benchmark test, Fusion said.
Fusion said it was able to express high-purity antigens on a commercial scale to develop diagnostic tests and was offering them on a commercial basis to companies and researchers worldwide. Unlike existing tests, Fusion's antigens can detect recent past infections and determine levels of neutralising antibodies to Covid-19, it said.
The company's shares rose more than 50% soon after the statement and were up 41% to 130p at 10:00 BST.
Fusion's product could be invaluable for modelling the disease and public health policy by helping determine transmission and fatality rates, the company said.
Richard Buick, chief technology officer at Fusion, said: "We are using these high-quality antigens to pan our human antibody library for Sard-CoV-2 neutralising antibodies, and we are delighted to now be able to make these antigens available to companies and researchers around the world to test, track and trace this disease."