Hologic’s Panther Fusion System Shows Feasibility for Detection of SARS-Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2)

Researchers at the Hannover Medical School (Hannover, Germany) have developed a molecular assay for detecting the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (previously 2019-nCoV) on Hologic, Inc.’s (Marlborough, MA, USA) automated Panther Fusion system.

Hologic is a medical technology company focused on improving women’s health and well-being through early detection and treatment by offering products encompassing diagnostics, breast and skeletal health and GYN surgical health. The Open Access functionality on Hologic’s Panther Fusion system allows accredited medical laboratories to design and validate laboratory developed tests (LDTs) to run on the fully automated, high-throughput platform. Laboratories can run their LDTs simultaneously with commercially available CE-IVD assays in a random access model, without waiting to batch tests. Users of Open Access are required to follow all applicable local requirements for their laboratory and users in developing and validating their own LDTs on the Panther Fusion system.

“Rapid diagnosis is critical to combating the spread of pandemics, and the Panther Fusion system is well suited to this purpose,” said Albert Heim, M.D, head of molecular diagnostics at Hannover Medical School. “Using inactivated virus from cell cultures and commercially available control materials, we adapted two recently published PCR protocols2 to run on the Panther Fusion system. Our next step will be to validate our assay on clinical samples.”

“It’s extremely gratifying to see our instrument system being used to quickly develop a response to an urgent public health threat,” said Kevin Thornal, president of the Diagnostic Solutions division at Hologic. “We specifically designed Panther Fusion and Open Access functionality to give diagnostic lab customers maximum flexibility, both for their day-to-day needs and to respond quickly to emerging threats.”

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Hologic, Inc.
Hannover Medical School