QIAGEN highlights its global commitment to preventive screening, treatment for latent TB infection

Reviewed by James Ives, M.Psych. (Editor)Mar 25 2019

QIAGEN N.V. (NYSE: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) recognized the annual World TB Day 2019 held on March 24 by highlighting its growing global commitment to preventive screening and treatment for latent tuberculosis (TB) infection, a widespread condition that can lead to active TB disease in vulnerable patients.

QIAGEN is investing in several areas regarding ease of use, throughput, screening efficiency and test availability for QuantiFERON-TB worldwide:

• In late 2018 QIAGEN and DiaSorin launched a CE-marked read-out kit for QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus for use on DiaSorin's widely used LIAISON platforms. The rollout of QFT-Plus as part of DiaSorin's broad menu of tests on more than 7,000 LIAISON instruments in hospitals and laboratories around the world adds an efficient automated solution for TB screening programs. Availability of QFT-Plus read-out kits for use on LIAISON platforms is expected in 2019 in the United States and in 2020 in China.
• QIAGEN has partnered with Hamilton Robotics and Tecan for single tube-handling solutions to offer high-efficiency automation of preanalytical processing steps.
• In early 2019 QIAGEN announced plans to develop a novel and proprietary solution, QuantiFERON-TB Access (QFT® Access) that is dedicated and tailored to the needs of low-resource regions with a high disease burden of TB. QFT Access is designed to pair ultrasensitive digital detection of latent TB infection with a complete workflow created with a focus on cost efficiency and ease of use. QIAGEN is developing QFT Access in a new partnership with Ellume, an Australian developer of digitally enabled diagnostics. Clinical trials for QFT Access are planned to start in 2019, and commercialization is expected to begin in 2020.