Abbott and Artus in Alliance for SARS Test

A worldwide manufacturing, marketing, and distribution agreement for a commercial test that detects the virus causing severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has been announced by Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, IL, USA) and Artus GmbH (Hamburg, Germany).

The test was developed by Artus in collaboration with the Bernhard-Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNI) in Hamburg (Germany). The polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based test detects the virus in patient samples and produces results in two hours. Under the agreement, Artus will manufacture the test and Abbott will market and distribute the test initially for use on the LightCycler thermal cycling system of Roche (Basel, Switzerland) in Canada, the United States, Germany, UK, and Austria.

Within several weeks, the test will also be available on the ABI Prism 7000 Sequence Detection System of Applied Biosystems (Foster City, CA, USA) for worldwide distribution. Abbott will market and distribute the test through its molecular diagnostic alliance with Celera Diagnostics (Alameda, CA, USA).

"We believe this new test is sensitive enough to detect the virus in the early stages of infection,” said James Koziarz, Ph.D., vice president, diagnostic products research and development, Abbott Laboratories. The company noted that the initial results of different sample types (sputum, swabs, stool, and tissue) from the laboratories of the World Health Organization (WHO) are promising.




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