Masangbae, CEO of AiBiotics
A domestic bio company has developed a specimen preprocessing technology that helps miniaturize large diagnostic testing equipment. It is expected to help open the market for popular point-of-care diagnostic devices (POCT) as it can produce highly accurate test results without being affected by patents held by leading global companies.
Masangbae, CEO of AiBiotics, said on the 31st, “We have developed a POCT ‘Lukine’ that anyone can easily use,” and “We plan to complete performance verification within the year, complete clinical evaluation next year, and launch it around 2026.” He said, “Our long-term goal is to open an ‘era of home diagnostics’ where every home has a diagnostic device, like a coffee machine.”
CEO Ma, who graduated from Hanyang University’s Department of Chemical Engineering, worked as a semiconductor process engineer at Samsung Electronics for over 10 years starting in 1993 before entering the bio-equipment field.
While many domestic diagnostic startups are focusing on developing reagents using specific biomarkers, he focused on equipment development from the beginning. This is because he judged it important to develop domestic equipment and build a hardware platform as Samsung Electronics’ semiconductors experienced their golden age of rising to the top in the world.
After its founding in 2017, the initial version of Lukin was completed around 2020. Since then, it has been working on upgrading the equipment to miniaturize it and reduce errors.
In order to perform molecular diagnostics (PCR) used to detect infectious diseases, etc., a patient sample must be collected at a hospital, etc., sent to a laboratory, and then follow-up work is required. Genetic material is extracted, treated with a reagent, and the temperature is raised and lowered repeatedly using PCR equipment to amplify the genetic material.
From the technology development stage, CEO Ma focused on solving everything from sample preprocessing to result derivation with a single device. POCT should be easy to use in any medical institution, but if it cannot handle the preprocessing process, it is just a ‘half-baked device.’ If a POCT with poor preprocessing technology is introduced, separate personnel are needed to preprocess the sample so that the machine can handle it. The meaning of on-site diagnosis fades.
The key is microfluidics. This is why global POCT leaders such as Sepid, acquired by Danaher for $4.5 billion in 2016, and Genmark, acquired by Roche for $1.8 billion in 2021, have developed their own preprocessing technologies and secured patents.
Representative Ma said, “We have secured a patent for a rotary type that is completely different from the existing commercialized syringe, roller, and piston methods,” and “It has the advantage of being able to expand the usability by integrating all the functions performed in the laboratory into a single cartridge and simply changing the temperature conditions and reagents.”
He receives medical advice from his older brother, Co-CEO Sang-hyeok Ma. Co-CEO Sang-hyeok Ma, who is the head of the pediatrics department at Changwon Fatima Hospital, is a domestic expert in pediatric infectious diseases.
The goal is to commercialize a product that diagnoses tuberculosis by inserting a stool sample into a lukin. Existing POCT tests for tuberculosis using sputum samples. 30% of the population, including children and the elderly, cannot spit out sputum, making POCT testing impossible.
Professor Kim Myeong-ok of Kyungsang University is also developing a product for early diagnosis of dementia using a biomarker. It is being promoted as a pertussis diagnosis project. CEO Ma predicted that it could also be supplied as an environmental monitoring product to food companies with increasing demand for microbiological testing.
– Translated to Google –
Reporter Lee Ji-hyun bluesky@hankyung.com
