The breath of life

12:00pm Tuesday 5th August 2008

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IT'S a breathtaking invention by a York bioscience company - and it is about to take the medical world by storm.

The Avacta Group plc, an awardwinning detection and analysis technology developer based at York Science Park, has just completed a prototype device which can analyse gases and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in human breath to make clinical diagnoses.

Now Avacta, a former Press New Business Of The Year, has signed a collaboration agreement with an Austrian company to identify linkages between tiny trace levels of gases and chemicals in the breath and selected bacterial infections.

V&F Medical Development GmbH, of Vienna will use its high-quality, high-cost mass spectrometers to find these markers in patients at Munich Hospital, Germany, so that affordable Avacta detectors can make informed diagnoses.

Chris Dryden, Avacta's commercial director, said: "If we know what the chemical is that we are looking for, then we can find it at trace level "It could be achieved with spectrometers, but they cost as much as £250,000 apiece whereas we hope to keep the price of our detectors down to between £10,000 and £20,000."

While it was too early at this stage to pinpoint which diseases could be identified, the vision was of a GP inviting a patient to breathe into an Avacta machine which can either instantly detect a cancer or other gastric disease, or give the all-clear.

Breath diagnosis is already in use, with machines on the market able to detect the bacterium H Pylori, indicating stomach ulcers, but none which can make more widespread diagnoses.

But the big breakthrough for Avacta came when it acquired Oxford Medical Diagnostics Ltd for £3 million in a share issue last December.

The Oxford University spinout specialises in high-sensitivity laserbased gas detection technology, and the combination of Avacta's own expertise in the field and the collaboration with V&F means the prospect is that much closer.

It is the latest major stepping stone to success for Avacta, which is about to launch Optim, its first product into the bio-pharmaceutical sector.

Indications are that drugs research firms are itching to get hold of Optim, a highly-specialised analytical tool, which can slash the risk of late-stage failure in drug development and bring the drug to market earlier.

Also about to be manufactured and sold under the Optim branding is what was previously known as "the box", which can rapidly identify the nature of viruses used in germ warfare and even has the capability of instantly detecting avian flu.

Even now, a prototype of an Avacta machine which can detect toxic hazards in the atmosphere at long range is being tested by the Ministry of Defence.

Professor Alastair Smith, chief executive of Avacta, said: "We are working with Porton Down throughout this phase and are excited about developing the final product for use in the field."