HYTEST LEADS THE WAY IN DIAGNOSTIC BIOTECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS

- Supplier's bid for an international reference material won again by the Finnish biotechnology company

Annually, heart diseases end many a person's busy schedule in a very final way. However, in near future these final endings will better be anticipated, foresees HyTest Ltd.
Measurement of cardiac troponin I (cTnI) in serum has proved to provide a highly specific and sensitive means for diagnosing myocardial infarction. Tests based on measuring Troponin I levels in human blood substantially help to provide risk stratification of acute coronary syndrome patients, and guiding therapeutic intervention for patients with coronary damage.
Problems lie in comparing the results between tests supplied by a multitude of manufacturers. - A sample may appear to have very fluctuating cTnl contents, indeed. The test measurements on an identical sample often differ by more than 20-fold between different testing methods, says Maria Severina, PhD, managing director of HyTest Ltd.
Standardisation work for Troponin I -based tests was started in 1998. Recently, the international standardisation committee selected HyTest's liquid native troponin I-C-T complex as the committees choice for a cTnI reference material. In this bid, HyTest won about ten significant diagnostic suppliers around the world.
Coming from Turku, Finland, HyTest is one of the world's leading raw material suppliers for the diagnostic branch. The company was established in 1994. In HyTest's business concept, scientific research forms the basis for high quality production. The company is already a global market leader as a producer and supplier of some immunological reagents. HyTest's main customers are major diagnostic corporations and research groups in the U.S.A. Other important market areas are EU-countries and Japan.