Verax Biomedical is a privately held, venture backed medical products company, founded upon the vision of detecting bacterial contamination in cells and tissues intended for transfusion and transplantation. Recognizing that bacteria pose a unique infectious challenge in these life giving tissues, we realized that novel approaches to detection were called for. While these cellular materials are routinely tested for viral contaminants, bacteria have posed a long standing and heretofore poorly addressed challenge. Unlike viruses, bacteria can replicate outside of a living host, meaning they can grow in these cellular matrices during storage prior to transfusion or transplantation. This results in the unique dilemma of an infectious contaminant that can grow from unmeasurably low levels at the time of collection to massive levels at the time of transfusion or transplantation, posing a serious and often fatal risk to their recipient. Our vision is to create rapid tests that are practical to implement as close to the time of transfusion or transplantation as possible, thus enabling the detection and elimination of these contaminated materials from the inventory prior to their use. The first application of PGD technology is a test for use during Quality Control testing for the presence of bacterial contamination in human platelets. The Company's first product is the Platelet PGD Test â a rapid QC test for the detection of bacterial contamination in platelets
