Meridian's illumigene Malaria test receives top innovation award

Meridian Bioscience Inc. this week announced its first place award for innovation in emergency treatment and point-of-care testing. 

Its illumigene Malaria test took top honors at the Journees Internationales de Biologie, Colloque National des Biologistes (JIB/ACNBH) conference in Paris, France in June.

The ground-breaking test does not require that materials be refrigerated or heated and produces results in less than an hour. It is up to 400 times more sensitive than previous tests at detecting the malaria parasite.

“This is not merely a scientific breakthrough," Senegal's Cheikh Anta Diop University Chief of the Laboratory of Parasitology and Mycology Professor Daouda Ndiaye said. "Faster and more accurate diagnosis is vital in the fight against malaria. Because of submicroscopic parasitemia carriage among the populations, a robust, sensitive and field community-deployable screening tool is needed to track the malaria reservoir in pre-elimination regions. The clinical trial I ran in Senegal for the validation of the test shows that illumigene Malaria has this capacity.”

Last year approximately 214 million cases of Malaria were diagnosed worldwide, with 1,500 cases in the U.S. Four hundred and thirty-eight thousand people died. It is one of the world's top three killers of children. The ability to detect the parasite quickly increases positive outcomes in treatment.

“We are delighted that illumigene Malaria has been recognized as a breakthrough in emergency treatment and point-of-care testing and we look forward to more illumigene tests making a positive impact worldwide," Meridian EVP of Research and Development Slava Elagin said. "We are evaluating a wide range of product ideas to assess which ones have the greatest potential to become the next breakthrough in diagnosis.”