Gyeongnam Pharmaceutical Develops 'Nucleic Acid Isothermal Amplification' Technology... "Expecting New Business Entry into In Vitro Diagnostic Devices"

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunseok Yoo] Gyeongnam Pharmaceutical announced on the 10th that it has completed the development of three types of nucleic acid isothermal amplification technologies capable of diagnosing genetic antigens of novel and variant coronavirus viruses in vitro, in collaboration with the KAIST Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation.

In Korea, the infection status of novel and variant COVID-19 is mostly diagnosed using RT-qPCR, a real-time gene detection test method. RT-qPCR is characterized by its ability to quantitatively measure virus concentration in the blood, and its high accuracy, sensitivity, and resolution. However, amid the exponential global increase in novel coronavirus infections, it has the drawback of being difficult to perform rapid diagnostics. According to the company, this limits the ability to immediately increase testing capacity when the number of suspected patients surges explosively.

In this project, three isothermal amplification technologies?NESBA (Nicking/Extension chain reaction System-Based isothermal nucleic acid Amplification), EC-LAMP (Electrochemical-Loop-mediated isothermal amplification), and SP-HAMP (self-priming phosphorothioated hairpin-mediated isothermal amplification)?were developed to enable on-site diagnosis and improve amplification efficiency compared to existing methods.

NESBA is a technology that improves amplification efficiency of antigen genetic material by solving the false-negative issue inherent in the existing NASBA technology. EC-LAMP is an electrochemical target nucleic acid detection technology that uses the ‘oxidase-mimicking activity’ of CeO2 nanoparticles to detect LAMP amplification products. SP-HAMP is a novel concept isothermal nucleic acid amplification technology that improves antigen genetic material amplification efficiency using a single DNA probe.

In the future, by applying these three nucleic acid-based isothermal amplification technologies to actual novel coronavirus infection diagnosis, it is expected to replace the RT-qPCR technology, which requires expensive equipment and specialized personnel, and to improve testing speed. This research was published in the prestigious international journal ACS Sensors with research funding from Gyeongnam Pharmaceutical.

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