Molecular diagnostics company Genedrive announced on Tuesday that it had been awarded £1.1m in funding for development of its Genedrive mTB/RIF tuberculosis test by Innovate UK, a non-departmental public body.
The AIM-quoted firm said the grant would be used to further the development of a high-sensitivity bacterial sample preparation module for its Genedrive instrument and would count the funding as income "matched to costs incurred over the periods to 30 June 2018 and 2019".

The funding will also support the development of a more streamlined workflow for its Genedrive instrument, with the firm's goal to increase the sensitivity of the assay and reduce manufacturing costs.

The programme was anticipated to run for 12 months, after which the sample preparation solution will require formal performance and clinical validation.

Genedrive chief executive David Budd said: "We believe Genedrive can play an important role in supporting the management of TB, by meeting key assay performance criteria at a price point that does not require the subsidies that exist in market today. The Innovate UK funding is important in further developing the Genedrive® mTB/RIF to meet the varied needs of the broad global markets to which we now have commercial channels."

As of 1040 GMT, shares had picked up 8.21% to 36.25p.

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