Bioventix plc is a UK company that specializes in the development and commercial supply of high-affinity monoclonal antibodies for applications in clinical diagnostics. They have recently announced a significant breakthrough in the creation of a unique antibody to vitamin D. The new antibody, called vitD3.5H10, could have significant utility in the manufacture of tests designed to determine the vitamin D status of patients.
Vitamin D status is linked with increased risk of many chronic diseases including autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular disease, cancers, type II diabetes and infectious diseases. This new awareness of the importance of vitamin D to overall health and the consequences of vitamin D deficiency has stimulated rapid growth in the demand for vitamin D tests at hospitals and clinics. Consequently, antibodies for use in such diagnostic tests are highly sought after within the healthcare industry.
The complication for vitamin D tests is that there are two different forms of vitamin D, named D3 and D2, both of which are active. Vitamin D3 is derived within the body from exposure of the skin to sunlight whereas D2 is a yeast- and plant-derived product, available in supplements and fortified foods. There is broad agreement within the medical community that vitamin D tests must equally recognise the two relevant forms of vitamin D.
Using its proprietary technology, Bioventix’s team of antibody scientists developed the antibody vitD3.5H10 that recognizes both relevant forms of vitamin D with equal and high affinity. The Company believe that this is a significant scientific breakthrough, in that very few, if any, antibodies exist with similar properties. As such, they suggest that this antibody might have significant commercial potential in research and clinical development. Commercial scale manufacture has already started and evaluation studies using prototype tests based on vitD3.5H10 are being conducted by a number of key Bioventix customers.
Bioventix’s customers are the large multinational diagnostics companies that supply blood testing equipment to hospitals around the world. Amongst the companies that operate in this field are Roche Diagnostics, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, Abbott Laboratories, Beckman Coulter and Ortho Clinical Diagnostics (a division of Johnson & Johnson).
Peter Harrison, CEO of Bioventix said “Given the emerging importance of vitamin D to maintain general health, I am very excited about vitD3.5H10 and its future commercial prospects.”