Bio-Techne and the Mount Sinai Health System in New York, through its commercial affiliate Kantaro Biosciences, announced the anticipated launch of the COVID-SeroIndex, a Kantaro Quantitative SARS-CoV-2 IgG Antibody RUO kit. Bio-Techne and Kantaro will leverage a joint commercialization and distribution team to support rapid distribution of the assay to the vaccine development community. The COVID-SeroIndex test kit is expected to be available for research use in early August.

The COVID-SeroIndex test kit is an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, or ELISA, designed to measure the presence or absence of anti-COVID-19 antibodies in addition to measuring the titer (level) of antibodies a person has produced. It utilizes not one, but two virus antigens: the full-length spike protein, and its receptor binding domain. The underlying technology was created by Mount Sinai's internationally recognized team of virologists and pathologists and has been tested on over 50,000 patient samples.

"The launch of a RUO version of the COVID-19 serology test brings to the research community what we believe is the highest quality SARS-CoV-2 antibody assay available," said Dave Eansor, Bio-Techne's Protein Sciences Segment President. "The assay supports the life cycle of COVID-19 vaccine development, providing researchers with an objective way of measuring antibody titer."

"The COVID-SeroIndex test kit is a natural extension of the previously announced Bio-Techne and Kantaro partnership," said Chuck Kummeth, President and Chief Executive Officer of Bio-Techne. "We are hopeful that this assay can accelerate the near-term launch of a successful COVID-19 vaccine due to its high level of accuracy and robustness."

"Mount Sinai has invested heavily in this technology and in leading research and clinical care for COVID-19. We recognized the need to deliver a high-quality, accurate assay and there has been immense development and application of the underlying technology for this test at Mount Sinai," said Erik Lium, PhD, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Innovation Officer at Mount Sinai. "We're thrilled to launch this additional research assay with Bio-Techne, continue building our understanding of COVID-19, and make this tool available globally to researchers."