Zyomyx Receives $7.5 Million From UNITAID to Launch Rapid, Service-Free Point-of-Care CD4 Test

Quantitative Diagnostic Will Support Expanded Access to HIV Treatment

FREMONT, Calif., March 26, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Zyomyx, Inc. has been awarded US$7.5 million from UNITAID to commercialize its quantitative MyT4(TM) point-of-care CD4 test, designed to guide HIV/AIDS treatment initiation and monitoring in low- and middle-income countries. UNITAID's funding contribution is part of its strategy to speed up access to a range of new and improved technologies from a number of manufacturers for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria for the world's most vulnerable populations. It will support field evaluations of the product, training for national HIV programs, and country-level and global regulatory filings. The Zyomyx test is the fastest point-of-care CD4 diagnostic on the market and delivers results that are equivalent to lab-based flow cytometry, the gold standard of CD4 testing. The MyT4(TM) CD4 test is commercially available receiving a CE Mark in December 2013.

"We are delighted and grateful that UNITAID has recognized the potential of the MyT4(TM) CD4 test and invested its resources to support its introduction," said Peter Wagner, President and CEO of Zyomyx. "We are fully aligned with UNITAID's approach to address public health issues as well as the market conditions to bring diagnostic technology to those most in need. UNITAID's innovative use of financing and market power to effect change makes it a transformational player in the global health arena."

CD4 count is the critical marker to determine when patients need to start antiretroviral therapy and to monitor the immune status of HIV positive patients. However, there are barriers to testing for people in resource poor settings because traditional lab tests are only available in central locations and require that many patients wait weeks to obtain a result. The quantitative MyT4(TM) CD4 test provides a result in 10 minutes from a finger-prick sample. The product is the only service-free quantitative test on the market as it does not require any maintenance or swap to a central location for repairs because there is no complex instrumentation. As a result, the cost to adopt the test is minimal compared to thousands of dollars for instrument based platforms.