Based on many years of research and development at the Fraunhofer ISIT in Itzehoe as well as the Fraunhofer IME and PharmedArtis GmbH in Aachen, POCDIA will develop a stand-alone system for the Point-of-Care (PoC) testing of infectious disease and other disease-specific diagnostic markers, e.g. specifc for cancer. For example biomarkers suitable for diagnostic differentiation should allow early detection of a disease as well as monitoring its successful treatment. Since protein biomarkers offer a significantly greater degree of differentiated information content compared to nucleic acid-based biomarkers, POCDIA will in the first instance focus on such protein detection but is open-minded towards fit-for-purpose molecular diagnostics.

The all-in-one, modular system will be robust, easy to handle, portable and cost-efficient avoiding large investments into analyzers for central unit testing. It will especially suitable also for decentralized medical care units in rural areas of less developed countries.

Once the first product for the serum detection of antibodies against hepatitis C viruses is introduced, the platform technology will allow POCDIA together with its development partners to launch cutting-edge tests for infectious diseases, oncology and other indications. In the future the system will allow the combination of different parameters on one chip which will allow the parallel testing of all relevant data associated with the differential diagnosis of a given spectrum of symptoms.

The POCDIA GmbH combines molecular biology capabilities of the Fraunhofer IME with the technological know-how of Fraunhofer ISIT. Major aim of the according business model is the development of new, complete measuring systems for point-of-care diagnostics, i.e. for the case of on-site testing patients. These protein-based multi parametric tests do have access to the current biochip platform of the Fraunhofer ISIT and the biological detection systems developed at the Fraunhofer IME. In the field of human diagnostics, the company is developing a first series of tests to market maturity. The tests are characterized by speed, high sensitivity, ease of use, and portability (mobile diagnostics) of the complete system. The main current application is rapid diagnosis of infectious diseases.

By using a small device almost everyone will be able to measure different parameters on one chip allowing parallel testing of all relevant data associated with the differential diagnosis of a given spectrum of symptoms. This will be a sustainable contribution to improvement of patients’ quality of life.

POCDIA will be leading in the development of bioassay-based microfluidic diagnostic systems for diagnosis of human disease and thus.