Q-Sera has announced a partnership with Japanese medical device company Terumo that will see its RAPClot rapid serum tube technology manufactured and used in Japan.
RAPClot serum tubes (evacuated blood collection tubes) produce high-quality serum in less than five minutes, reducing the turnaround time from sample collection to analysis compared with current technologies.
Q-Sera said RAPClot is also effective in producing high-quality serum from blood samples that contain anti-coagulants such as heparin.
Up to 10 per cent of hospital emergency department admissions are patients on anti-coagulant therapies and current blood collection tubes cannot efficiently clot their blood, resulting in a failure to clot or formation of fibrin strands which interfere with analysers.
"The ability of RAPClot tubes to generate high-quality serum in less than 5 minutes and to clot anti-coagulated blood samples represents a substantial step forward in patient diagnosis," said Q-Sera.
Under the terms of the partnership, Terumo has been granted the exclusive rights to manufacture and market Q-Sera’s rapid serum tube technology in Japan. Q-Sera will also supply Terumo with the recombinant protein RAPClot.
Q-Sera CEO Michael Grant said, “Q-Sera is pleased to be partnering with Terumo Corporation for the Japanese market. Terumo Corporation is a leading global medical device company and has a history of innovation in the field of blood collection tubes and together we look forward to bringing this next-generation tube technology to the market to benefit Japanese patients."
Tsuyoshi Tomita, senior executive officer of Terumo, added, “RAPClot has the potential to dramatically improve issues such as coagulation time, heparinised blood, and fibrin strands in tests with serum. It will be a great pleasure for Terumo to be able to partner with Q-Sera to improve the accuracy of diagnosis using blood collection tubes.”