As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) becomes a global pandemic, every citizen’s immediate effort is required to fight against it. Recently, media across the globe widely praised Taiwan’s achievement in epidemic prevention ranging from preemptive actions, high public health standards, and medical treatment preparedness; and Taiwan may serve as the role model for public health and epidemic prevention. GeneOne Diagnostics Corporation (GeneOne Crop.), located at the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP), announced a fast nucleic acid diagnostic kit for COVID-19 in March, and will collaborate with Kaohsiung Medical University (KMU) on clinical trials.
GeneOne Crop. was founded at the STSP in 2019 and its nucleic acid extraction /diagnostic kits products mainly targeted towards diagnostic technology companies, hospitals, and laboratories in Japan and Taiwan. At the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, GeneOne Corp. dedicated in developing fast nucleic acid diagnostic kits for COVID-19, upon receiving feedbacks from medical laboratories reflecting their needs for thediagnosis. Following the diagnostic procedures recommended by WHO, the test result only takes 60 minutes of fluorescence reaction. In order to verify the preclinical efficiency, GeneOne Corp. is collaborating with Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital. With KMU President Yuh-Jyh Jong and Vice President Ming-Lung Yu‘s assistance, trials of the diagnostic kit will be conducted in Dr. Yen-Hsu Chen’s lab in the Center for Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease Research, with 1000 free reactions authorized. Hoping to help fighting the pandemic with the high quality product, GeneOne Corp. also submitted the diagnostic kit for certification to U.S. FDA according to the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and to the E.U. counterparts (CE).
GeneOne Crop. has capital of 1.2 million USD with a 13-member team. As a biotech startup, its expected revenue will continue to grow when new products are launched. GeneOne Crop. as part of the STSP Intelligent Biotech Medical Cluster combines the health/medical resources with the industry chain. In particular, collaboration with hospitals and research institutes provides clinical resources that enable simplification of current diagnostic technologies based on nucleic acid extraction and amplification for clinical human samples. This was why GeneOne Corp. can react in time to be prepared for this critical moment of epidemic prevention and control. As epidemic prevention becomes a global effort and Taiwan’s medical standards and biotechnology receives international coverage, GeneOne Corp. and the STSP Intelligent Biotech Medical Cluster have the technology and readiness to fight the epidemic.