Sept 11, 2007

Richmond News
Brett Beadle/ Richmond News

Richmond company's new instant HIV test is the latest weapon in the war on the disease that kills one child every minute. More than 15,000 Canadians have the HIV virus and don't even know it, according to Canada's Public Health Agency. A disproportionate number of them live in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, which has been dubbed the AIDS capital of Canada, due to the sex trade and high incidence of intravenous drug use.

Matthew Clayton of Richmond-based bioLytical Laboratories is hoping the instant HIV test his company has developed will take a serious bite out of those numbers. "This test, hopefully, will bring more people forward for testing," says the biotechnical company's chief operating officer. "We can take this test to anyone." Standard testing for the HIV virus is both costly and has a built-in deterrent in the time it takes to get results. "They talk about the seven to 10 days of hell," Clayton said.

The INSTI HIV-1/HIV-2* Rapid Antibody Test developed and manufactured by bioLytical has the same accuracy (99.6 per cent) as standard testing, but takes a mere 60 seconds to get results. The tests have been approved for use in Canada through Health Canada, in Europe through the European Union, and in India. The company is waiting for Food and Drug Administration approval in the U.S. Because they are so cheap and easy to administer, the test kits could have huge potential in remote areas, like northern Canada, where the HIV infection rates in some native communities are "frightening," according to William Booth, executive director of AIDS Vancouver. "It does have major applications in developing countries," Booth added. Even closer to home, though, Clayton sees huge potential in East Vancouver. "We have our own mini-Africa sitting right there," he said.

But so far, the B.C. Ministry of Health has not approved the kits for coverage under the Medical Services Plan. In fact, the only province in Canada, so far, to approve coverage of the kits for use in clinics is Ontario. "We are hopeful the B.C. government is not too far behind," Clayton said. "The goal, in Canada, is to have this completely covered by the Medical Services Plan." Currently, it costs $100 to $150 to do an HIV test, and it takes several steps: A trip to a clinic, a trip to a lab, then a follow-up trip to get the results several days later. The INSTI kits, by contrast, would cost between $25 and $30 and would be administered at an approved clinic in a single visit. Clayton said the seven- to 10-day wait can sometimes result in people not bothering to come back for their results. "Most people who are high-risk do not come back for their tests," Clayton said. "Every person that takes our test gets their result."

The test itself was developed by Intracel, which happened to have its Canadian operations based in Richmond. In 2002, Clayton, president Robert Mackie and their business partners bought the rights to the test, and spent the next few years developing it. "It's one thing to have science it's another thing to have a product you can take to the market," Clayton said. Taking the product to market required a lot of clinical trials. The company recently spent a couple of million dollars and two years developing a fully automated system that allows it to produce up to 15 million INSTI kits per year.

BioLytical currently employs 30 to 40 people. In a few years, Clayton hopes to see a second production line added, which would double the company's output capacity. Sadly, there are huge markets developing for anything related to HIV in countries like India, Africa, China and Russia. "Russia will be the hotbed because of the sex-trade work," Clayton predicts. The kits, which come in small bags, are manufactured entirely in Richmond at bioLytical's labs in the Commerce Parkway industrial park.

Clayton said Richmond has the potential to become a biotechnical leader. "We have the capacity to be the biotech hub of B.C.," he said. Although the company's primary focus is the INSTI kit, Clayton said the company is also developing test kits for Hepatitis B, TB and cancer markers. "We have other tests in the pipeline," Clayton said. "We kind of keep those things close to our chest."

(C)Richmond News 2007

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