Press releases

QuantaMatrix Passes Technical Assessment, Accelerating Preparation for Listing in KOSDAQ

Personalized medicine platform company with application of rapid microbiological diagnostic technology

• Plan to submit preliminary review application this year or early next year… Will listed quite soon. 
• Its flagship product, a direct rapid antimicrobial susceptibility test (dRAST) system, dramatically improve patient survival rate by reducing time to get lab result and to proper treatment  
• Expect to become a leader in sepsis diagnostics…an innovator of diagnostic microbiology and personalized medicine in the global market.

December 18, 2019, Seoul, Korea -- QuantaMatrix (QM, CEO: SungHoon Kwon), an IVD company specialized in diagnostic microbiology, successfully passed the technology evaluation. It will accelerate its preparation for listing in KOSDAQ.   

The company announced on Dec. 18 that it received grade `A’ from the Korea Technology Finance Corporation and the Korea Enterprise Data. It plans to submit the preliminary review application to the Korea Exchange in order to be enlisted in the KOSDAQ and proceed Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the first half of 2020. The major underwriters are Mirae Asset Daewoo Co., LTD. and Daishin Securities Co., Ltd.

QM is a company specialized in research and development of customized medical platforms based on the technology of rapid microbiological diagnosis. The company spun off from Biophotonics and Nano-Engineering Lab (BiNEL) in November 2010, which is the lab of Dr. SungHoon Kwon at the Seoul National University.

Its main business is the `antimicrobial susceptibility test (AST)’ solution based on its source technology of rapid diagnostic microbiology system. Its flagship product is a direct and rapid antimicrobial susceptibility test (dRAST) system which is mainly indicated for sepsis.

Sepsis is a systemic inflammatory syndrome due to the bacterial infection in the bloodstream. The syndrome is an acute disease whose survival rate decreases by 7- 9% every hour and mortality rate is 30-40% without an early initiation of appropriate treatment. The characteristic of the disease makes the timely diagnosis a critical factor for life of patients, and therefore it is important to promptly perform bacterial identification and AST in the diagnosis of sepsis. 

However, the conventional antimicrobial susceptibility test for sepsis has significant limitations. It took about 60 hours, equivalent to 3 working days of hospitals, until the optimal antimicrobial agent is prescribed. The delay is mainly because the treatment decision requires a very lengthy laboratory work such as blood culture, pure culture, and AST.

`dRAST’ is a solution that applies microfluidic technology, microscopic-imaging system, and big data analysis to conduct the AST directly from positive blood culture. dRAST has the exceptional advantage that the system provides lab results only within 6 to 8 hours, which is a significant decrease in the total amount of time for lab testing by 30-50 hours, in comparison with the conventional AST methods.

QM validated dRAST for its clinical efficacy and safety through 10 clinical trials. In addition, the company is accredited for `New Excellent Technology (NET)’, and it received regulatory clearances by MFDS, CE mark, and nHTA. Moreover, a performance test of dRAST is actively in progress in major leading university hospitals in Korea such as Seoul National University Hospital and other European top-tier hospitals as well. As soon as the evaluations are completed from those hospitals, the company plans to start sales of dRAST in the domestic and global markets.

Dr. SungHoon Kwon, the CEO of QM, said “Our technology and products matter since it dramatically increases the survival rate of sepsis patients. We expect to play an innovative role in the future diagnosis market to treat sepsis. The technology will dramatically reduce socioeconomic costs but also contributes greatly to combat the issues of super-bacteria, which is the biggest threat to the mankind. We will become a global leader in the field of microbiology with our research and development for the well-being of humankind,” Dr. Kwon added.

In addition to the rapid AST system which are already known for its global competitiveness, QM has various pipelines including `a rapid ID platform’, `a rapid drug susceptibility test for M. tuberculosis’, in the field of tuberculosis, `QPLEX cardiovascular kit’, in the field of cardiovascular disease, and `QPLEX Alz plus assay’, in the field of Alzheimer’s disease.

The company believes the listing is a stepping stone to lead global personalized medicine in the diagnostic microbiology market by enhancing its R&D capabilities and launching a variety of innovative products. 

About QuantaMatrix Inc.

QuantaMatrix Inc, a South Korea based clinical microbiology diagnostics company, was established in 2010 as a spin-off from Biophotonics and Nano Engineering Lab (BiNEL) at Seoul National University. The company is dedicated to solving the global challenge of antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial misuse and promote optimal antimicrobial prescribing. Its pipelines include rapid drug susceptibility test solution for tuberculosis and IVD kit for Alzheimer's disease. For more information please visit www.quantamatrix.com

About dRAST^TM

dRAST^TM is a direct & Rapid Antimicrobial Susceptibility testing system with microscopic time-lapse imaging, microfluidic agarose channel technology and proprietary software algorithms, which provides MIC-based phenotypic antimicrobial susceptibility testing direct from positive blood cultures in as low as 5 hours; reducing time to result by up to 2 days compared with conventional methods. The rapid results allow for earlier optimization of antimicrobial agents in critically-ill patients with bloodstream infections and sepsis. Its EUCAST panel supports 18 Gram-positive/17 Gram-negative antimicrobial agents and the CLSI panel 17 Gram-positive/19 Gram-negative.

For Further Information, Please Contact:
Jeongmin Park
PR Department
Seoul IR Network
+82-2-783-0629 / icarusjm@seoulir.co.kr