Commenting on this development, Panbio's Acting CEO Dr Stuart Hazell stated: "The filing of this patent application not only protects the company's intellectual property, but also is critical to our commercialisation strategy. We now have a package to offer and can discuss the platform more openly with potential licensees and partners."

The international patent cooperation treaty (PCT) application covers the core developments in panDA Homogeneous Immunoassay technology as well as the novel aspects relating to the HSV 1 & 2 prototype assays that were announced on 14 February 2007. panDA is at the forefront of Panbios investment in developing new and improved technologies for use in the diagnosis of disease. The successful commercialisation of panDA technology would bring a greater degree of simplicity, flexibility and speed to the immunoassay process, which would improve efficiency and expand capacity.

The technology represents a potentially great advance in medical and veterinary diagnostics. Reduced diagnostic test processing times down to as little as 10 minutes are possible, down from up to three hours using current technology. Quicker diagnosis will benefit patients, physicians and clinical laboratory customers.

Furthermore, the technology allows immunoassays to be performed in fewer steps, heavily reducing the complexity of performing assays by instrument or by manual operation, hence reducing costs and the potential for operator error.

The Research Team Leader for the panDA project, Dr Charlie Huang, said, "It is rewarding to see that the hard work of the research team has generated such a positive outcome."

While this announcement represents a further advance for the company, there remains a level of technical and commercial risk with respect to the project.