Agenix Acquires Diagnostic Device Technology from Tyrian

Agenix Ltd. (Melbourne, VIC, Australia) entered an agreement with Tyrian Diagnostics Ltd. (Sydney, NSW, Australia) to license its rapid point-of-care (POC) human diagnostic technology in a share exchange transaction. This will complement Aginex's drug and diagnostic pipeline.

Under the terms of the agreement, Agenix will license exclusive worldwide royalty free rights to the human health application for Tyrian’s DiagnostIQ rapid point-of-care (POC) test platform. In return, Agenix will provide Tyrian with Agenix shares to the value of USD 0.5 million payable in installments to be completed by June 2014.

The company has licensed the rights to develop the DiagnostIQ platform for human health applications and aims to develop the technology into a microarray device so that it will process multiple human health diagnostic tests on the one system. The platform comprises a disposable test device, which can be used for various applications, either alone or together with the DiagnostIQ Reader, for various human, animal, and agricultural applications.

Agenix chairman and CEO Nicholas Weston said, “[….] We now have a platform for human health array and microarray technology developers globally, as well as a medical device product for our expanding China business.”

Agenix will also acquire a patent for Tyrian’s antibody-based test for active tuberculosis. This test covers a biomarker, discovered by Tyrian, which has the potential to distinguish patients with active TB infection from those that have been infected in the past, or have been vaccinated.

Agenix is also developing AGX 1009, a next-generation reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NtRTI) prodrug of tenofovir for which the company plans to advance into Phase 1 in the second half of 2013.

A public, clinical-stage company, Agenix is focused on the discovery and development of monoclonal antibody blood clot diagnostics, and small molecule drugs for the treatment of hepatitis B and other serious diseases. The company entered into a collaborative partnership with the Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, part of the Ministry of Health, to purchase AGX 1009. Preclinical work is already being conducted in Beijing (China).

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Agenix Ltd.
Tyrian Diagnostics Ltd.