Press releases

QuantaMatrix, Early Diagnosis Kit for Alzheimer's Disease Approved by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety

Seoul, Korea – QuantaMatrix, a Korean IVD company to be listed on the KOSDAQ in October, announces that it has obtained item approval by the Korean MFDS (Ministry of Food and Drug Safety) for the early diagnosis kit for Alzheimer's disease, which was jointly developed with Medifron DBT.

The approved item is the 'QPLEX Alz plus assay', which is a medical kit used to help diagnose Alzheimer's disease at the early stages by checking whether beta-amyloid is accumulated in the brain among high-risk groups of the elderly without symptoms or with cognitive impairment.

Alzheimer's disease, which accounts for 60-70% of all dementia cases, is diagnosed by the accumulation of beta-amyloid in the brain, but the existing diagnostic methods such as 'Amyloid PET' or cerebrospinal fluid analysis have limitations such as high cost and risk of side effects. On the other hand, QPLEX Alz plus assay developed by QuantaMatrix and Medifron has the advantage of being able to help diagnose Alzheimer's disease in an early stage through a simple blood test at a low cost.

“If our products are commercialized, safety and convenience for dementia diagnosis is expected to be improved as well as significant added value will be created by positioning as the company's main cash cow”, said Sunghoon Kwon, CEO of QuantaMatrix. He also emphasized, “As soon as the nHTA(New Health Technology Assessment) evaluation process is completed within this year, we are planning to expand the domestic and the global market at the same time.” The global dementia market is estimated to be worth US$12 billion in 2024.

Meanwhile QuantaMatrix is preparing to list on the KOSDAQ market based on innovative pipelines for sepsis patients. The representative product is 'dRAST', an antimicrobial susceptibility testing system for sepsis that can find the optimal antimicrobial for sepsis patients at an earlier time. It has already entered 10 European countries by acquiring domestic nHTA and CE-IVD certification in Europe.

Besides QuantaMatrix is planning to expand the value chain in the clinical microbiology market based on the △Rapid whole blood bacterial identification system ‘QID’ and △All-in-One Sepsis Diagnosis Solution ‘μCIA’. QuantaMatrix is planning to submit the S-1 document as early as next month and start IPO in earnest. 

ABOUT QUANTAMATRIX 

QuantaMatrix was founded in 2010 as an in vitro diagnosis company by Sunghoon Kwon, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Seoul National University. Our core product is direct Rapid Antimicrobial Susceptibility Test (dRAST) for sepsis. It is able to prescribe an antimicrobial in as low as four hours, compared to conventional methods with three hospital business days. We also tackle tuberculosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and cardiovascular disease with our competitive products. We aim to continue our growth as a leading in vitro diagnostics company in the fields of microbiology, molecular biology, and immunoassay.