R&D grant to speed pathology technology on its way

Everybody's favourite nightmare -- that they will be falsely diagnosed with a terrible disease because of a mix-up in blood or tissue samples -- is the target of Brisbane-based Ai Scientific's pathology specimen processing technology, which last week received a $3.33 million R&D Start grant from the federal government.

Ai Scientific -- originally Analytic Instruments -- began life in a garage more than 20 years ago. The grant will be used to develop modules to improve the company's Pathfinder technology, a machine controlled by state-of-the-art software which logs all specimens received by a pathology laboratory, identifies the tube type, calculates the volume in the tube and sorts it into workstation racks.

"We're setting out to reduce errors and ensure that we never loose those tubes," said David Halstead, Ai's Pathfinder business manager. "We're looking to automate a number of the other processes and control them so that we know where the tube is right from the doctor's surgery through to storage. The new modules will allow tubes to be capped, decapped and sorted. At the collection area, tubes will be dispensed already bar-coded and labelled.

"When the tube is collected, blood can be centrifuged and imaging can check if there is enough blood in the tube and whether it is lipaemic or haemolysed," he said

Currently, 12 Pathfinder machines are installed in Australia and 36 have been sold into Italy, but breaking into the US market will be the goal with the new line of products, Halstead said. The first models are expected to be available in 12 months.

Over the next five years, Ai Scientific anticipates total sales of $56 million for the technology. By 2009 the company aims to be booking sales of $14.5 million per annum. "The R&D grant will speed the commercialisation process. It will allow us to be leaders rather than followers," said Halstead.

Presenting the grant funding to Ai, federal industry minister Ian Macfarlane pointed out that pathology tests played an increasingly important role in disgnosing illness.

"Millions of blood and tissue samples and tests are carried out each year so it's vital that the sampling is not mixed up," he said. "Ai Scientific's work is reducing that risk."