Tasmanian blood sampling technology licensed

The University of Tasmania and commercialisation company Housefield have signed an intellectual property licensing agreement to develop the blood sampling technology known as MilliSpot.

MilliSpot was invented by a team led by Professor Emily Hilder at the Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science (ACROSS) and has been developed by the university for more than five years. The polymer-based material can stabilise and store small amounts of dried blood, eg, from a finger-prick, in a way that allows laboratories to carry out many common analyses with greater accuracy and precision.

Professor Hilder explained that scientists “need something better than paper” for storing blood for more complex drug testing and analysis, “and that’s what MilliSpot is - a porous polymer-based material”.

The licensing agreement is a major step towards commercialisation of the technology, according to Dr Darren Cundy, the university’s director of business development and technology transfer.

“The technology has now reached the point where we need to focus on manufacturing the material at the right level of quality and at a competitive price and that is best managed by the private sector,” Dr Cundy said.

“Finding the right partners to take on this development stage and managing those relationships is something that an intermediary is well placed to do, so we are pleased to be working with Housefield, which has already invested significant time and effort into this.”

Dr Robin Fieldhouse, managing director of Housefield, said the company sees “significant opportunities for MilliSpot to become the dried blood spot material of choice, delivering benefits for both patients and scientists in a range of market applications”.

“We look forward to developing the key partnerships that will be critical to the commercialisation program,” he added.