Business
Nanopore sequencing profiles TB: FIND evaluation
Nanopore sequencing profiles TB: FIND evaluation.
About this update from Oxford Nanopore Technologies Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n \n \n \n RNS Number : 7973F\n Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc\n 24 March 2022\n \n \n \n \n Oxford Nanopore announces positive evaluation of new method for rapid drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) profiling \n \n \n On World Tuberculosis Day, Oxford Nanopore, in collaboration with Quadram Institute Bioscience (QIB), announces that it has developed a new rapid workflow shown in a Phase I study to identify DR-TB which, when validated, could help clinicians tackle the disease globally in the future.\n \n \n \n Tackling drug\n \n \n -resistant TB\n \n \n \n Drug-resistance is a major barrier to global efforts to reduce incidence of TB, which was the second leading infectious killer after COVID-191 in 2020. The lack of rapid, accurate and information-rich tests for DR-TB is exacerbating its spread; major healthcare organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have identified sequencing-based drug resistance testing as a priority. In 2019 the Seq&Treat programme was launched to investigate improved DR-TB detection by introducing and accelerating the uptake of sequencing in clinical settings.\n \n \n Oxford Nanopore, together with QIB have successfully completed phase I of a DR-TB targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) study as part of Seq&Treat, grant funded by Unitaid and led by the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND). This involved the development of a rapid end-to-end sequencing workflow to identify mutations associated with drug-resistance across the TB genome, directly from clinical samples as part of a research study.\n \n \n The nanopore targeted sequencing solution succeeded in the Phase I analytical evaluation by reaching or surpassing the main World Health Organisation (WHO) performance targets, including genotypic sensitivity (>98%), genotypic specificity (>98%), limit-of-detection (<1000 cells) failure rates (0%), turnaround time (target <24 hours, achieved 8 hours) and ability to detect mixed resistance (≥10% heteroresistance detection).\n \n \n Oxford Nanopore has now advanced to Phase II where the performance of the solution will be evaluated in a prospective clinical study in India, South Africa and Georgia from April 2022. Success in this and the final stage is anticipated to result in confirmation that the Oxford Nanopore sequencing solution\n meets the diagno...