Bio-Techne's Ella On The Front Lines In Fight Against COVID-19

MINNEAPOLIS, March 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ:TECH) today shared news from clinical partners on the use of the ProteinSimple™-branded Ella™ Automated Immunoassay platform in the fight against COVID-19.  

In a March 23, 2020 press release, the Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai announced that they are utilizing Bio-Techne's Ella Automated Immunoassay Platform to monitor individual immune responses to COVID-19. Specifically, the Ella Cytokine Storm Panel is being used to detect Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) in real-time. Cytokine Release Syndrome represents a critical point in individuals with severe COVID-19 disease where immune molecules, called cytokines, attack the patient's organs, representing a critical and potentially fatal point in disease management. 

As stated in its press release, "Mount Sinai clinical laboratories will use the ELLA Cytokine Storm Panel in COVID-19 patients who have been admitted to the hospital to monitor them and know, in real time, when they are experiencing cytokine storm. The test results are available in a few hours and can be repeated throughout the course of care to help guide hospital care and to measure the response to experimental drugs given in clinical trials for COVID-19 patients." (link) "Mount Sinai clinical laboratories will use the ELLA Cytokine Storm Panel in COVID-19 patients who have been admitted to the hospital to monitor them and know, in real time, when they are experiencing cytokine storm. The test results are available in a few hours and can be repeated throughout the course of care to help guide hospital care and to measure the response to experimental drugs given in clinical trials for COVID-19 patients."

Mount Sinai joins hospitals in Italy and throughout Europe that have and are continuing to adopt the Ella platform for CRS testing during this crisis.  Ella's sensitivity, simplified workflow, and fast time-to-results make the platform ideal for CRS testing and are the key factors driving this adoption. These developments follow the 2018 announcement that Micropoint Biotechnologies of China is developing clinical applications for the detection of CRS on the Ella platform.

"Ella is a potentially important tool for monitoring and saving patients who are infected by COVID-19," commented Chuck Kummeth, President and Chief Executive Officer of Bio-Techne. "The Ella Cytokine Storm Panel has the potential to enable front line healthcare workers to triage high-risk COVID-19 patients in real-time, guide hospital care and to measure responses to experimental clinical trial drugs. Ella joins several other products Bio-Techne has deployed to combat COVID-19, including RNAscope™ for detection of coronavirus in tissue and antibodies for vaccine development. We are focused on leveraging our deep portfolio and developing new tools to enable solutions for this rapidly evolving pandemic."

Bio-Techne aims to further enable customers to utilize the Ella platform for this and other clinical applications where time-to-results is critical.  To that end, Bio-Techne is investing in both near-term and long-term efforts to enable broader clinical adoption of Ella and expand beyond its current Research Use Only (RUO) status.  This includes partnering with clinical research customers to pursue Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) status for COVID-19 testing in key regions, as well as investing in manufacturing and quality control systems required for diagnostic products.  

About Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH)

Ella Automated Immunoassay platform, ProteinSimple, a Bio-Techne Brand

Contact: David Clair, Senior Director, Business Development
[email protected]
612-656-4416

SOURCE Bio-Techne Corporation