BILLERICA, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Quanterix Corporation (NASDAQ: QTRX), a company digitizing biomarker analysis to advance the science of precision health, today announced the following statement amid the continued COVID-19 global crisis, severely impacting public health and the economy.
As COVID-19 continues to affect a growing number of people in the U.S. and around the world, Quanterix remains committed to the safety and wellbeing of its employees, their families and communities, and its professional community-at-large, which spans customers, partners and investors across the globe. Quanterix was quick to implement state-of-the-art best practices in its facilities to mitigate the risk of contracting or spreading the virus, and as a result, has been able to maintain operations in support of its ultra-sensitive Simoa technology. Namely, its analytical instruments, consumables, including important assays for COVID-19 research, Accelerator Laboratory testing and assay development services. The Company is also expanding capacity and capabilities of its Accelerator Laboratory services to support customers looking to:
- Overcome interruptions in their laboratories
- Sustain clinical trials given breakthroughs in utilizing biomarkers to improve drug approval probability
- Address emergency testing needs given new COVID-19 priorities
- Globalize trial support given increasing demand
As an additional response to these unprecedented circumstances, Quanterix is offering a set of important and differentiated tools that COVID-19 investigators can immediately deploy to study disease progression, life-threatening cytokine release syndrome, and patient/treatment response. Researchers are leveraging Simoa’s extreme sensitivity and specificity of cytokine panels to measure levels and profiles in non-critical and critical COVID-19 patients to identify ways to combat the virus and help prevent cytokine storm.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted Quanterix to implement sweeping changes at an unprecedented pace,” said Kevin Hrusovsky, Chief Executive Officer, President and Chairman, Quanterix. “Early on, we took aggressive steps to protect our employees, families and communities, while rapidly implementing a resilience plan to maintain our operations and support our global customer base. We have also established several collaborations with leading COVID-19 researchers and testing centers in the hardest-hit areas, namely France, Spain, United States, United Kingdom and China. At these centers, our proven cytokine measurement assays are being used for critical cytokine release research on active COVID-19 patients. In addition, we are exploring Simoa serology assays to enable early detection and measurement of the COVID-19 virus and host immune response. We are encouraged by the speed and thoroughness of our plan and cannot say enough about how resilient, flexible and committed our employees have been throughout this crisis.”
In summary, Quanterix has taken the following actions during this unprecedented time:
Employee-first Approach to Operations
Employees and their families are at the heart of our operations, and their wellbeing remains our top priority. Two weeks ago, we asked office-based employees whose duties allow them to work remotely to work from home. We have taken steps to provide enhanced communications and tools to make our remote operations seamless with our internal operations. We have implemented best-in-class protocols to minimize the risk of exposure and virus spread for essential personnel in our Accelerator Services Laboratory, manufacturing facilities, assay development, and other lab-based employees to support our customers and partners in the face of an unprecedented situation.
Redirecting Resources to COVID-19 and Infectious Disease Research
Emerging data suggests that in some coronavirus infected people, especially the elderly and sick, a dysfunctional immune system that fails to keep the response in check is associated with disease progression. Recent data also indicates that elevated cytokine levels, sometimes called cytokine storms, can be a predictor of clinical morbidity in COVID-19 patients.
Our Simoa technology provides researchers with the capability to conduct highly sensitive and accurate multiplexed tests for cytokines and chemokines in serum and plasma. We have published a letter with the four categories in which our technology is currently being deployed at a rapid pace by research organizations around the world. Those four categories include:
- Studying the Key Role of Inflammation in Disease Progression and Severity
- Characterizing Links between Viral Infection and Neurological Manifestations
- Measuring the Earliest Biomarkers of Myocardial Injury and Risk of Acute and Chronic Cardiac Disease
- Developing New Ultra-Sensitive Assays for Viral Detection and Host Response
Our approach to the direct detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles builds on our historical work with HIV, where our p24 assays kits were proven capable of detecting active HIV infection as much as 10 days earlier than other established methods. This work provided an essential foundation for advancing a rapid, low-cost antigen assay to see the disease at its most infectious, pre-symptomatic phase. We believe a similar strategy can be employed to develop an ultra-sensitive COVID-19 test using our technology. As such, we are devoting resources to harnessing our in-depth knowledge of infectious disease pathology, unique and highly sensitive assay capabilities, and CLIA-Licensed Accelerator Lab resources to commercialize fast-turnaround COVID-19 detection solutions.
“We strongly believe our technology and the Powering Precision Health network of industry experts that can help support the acceleration of essential infectious disease screening, therapeutics development and disease understanding,” continued Hrusovsky. “We are actively seeking and developing collaborations to apply our ultra-sensitive biomarker detection technology in the global fight against COVID-19. We ask investigators around the world to please contact us if you have specific reagents or biological insights that can be shared. We must come together as a powerful community of experts to regain control over this disease. We plan to host a global webinar next week with top COVID-19 researchers from around the world to increase communications and collaborations using our Simoa technologies to battle the virus. Please join us Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 10 a.m., EDT. Register here.
Overall Business Outlook and Uncertainty
We remain committed to supporting the needs of our employees, customers and society in the face of this unprecedented crisis. With the fast-moving nature of the current environment, we cannot rule out the future impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business. In anticipation of this situation, however, we took proactive steps before the crisis became broad-based to protect our employees and re-align our organization to support the needs of our customers and COVID-19 researchers quickly. Our strong balance sheet provides financial flexibility to maintain our essential operations and financial strength to support our strategic pursuits. As this situation unfolds over the next several months, we will continue to proactively manage and navigate the crisis to protect our employees and their families, while we optimize business operations for customers, collaborators and investors. Despite the present near-term challenges, we remain positive and committed to the unprecedented opportunity before the research markets and, ultimately, across clinical diagnostic markets.
About Quanterix
Quanterix is a company that’s digitizing biomarker analysis with the goal of advancing the science of precision health. The company’s digital health solution, Simoa, has the potential to change the way in which healthcare is provided today by giving researchers the ability to closely examine the continuum from health to disease. Quanterix’ technology is designed to enable much earlier disease detection, better prognoses and enhanced treatment methods to improve the quality of life and longevity of the population for generations to come. The technology is currently being used for research applications in several therapeutic areas, including oncology, neurology, cardiology, inflammation and infectious disease. The company was established in 2007 and is located in Billerica, Massachusetts. For additional information, please visit https://www.quanterix.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "may," "will," "expect," "plan," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend" and similar expressions (as well as other words or expressions referencing future events, conditions or circumstances) are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this news release are based on Quanterix’ expectations and assumptions as of the date of this press release. Each of these forward-looking statements involves risks and uncertainties. Factors that may cause Quanterix’ actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements in this press release are discussed in Quanterix’ filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including the "Risk Factors" sections contained therein. Except as required by law, Quanterix assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in expectations, even as new information becomes available.
