DTIF funding announced for FerrTest consortium

Cork – Dec 09, 2019 – Radisens is delighted to announce €7M funding for the FerrTest consortium, as part of the Government’s Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund (DTIF), to develop a point-of-care iron stores (ferritin) test for at-risk blood donors, women and children. This Radisens-led consortium includes Irish Manufacturing Research (IMR), Poly Pico Technologies Ltd. and Trinity College Dublin.

The DTIF is a €500 million Project Ireland 2040 fund confirmed under the National Development Plan in 2018 with €65M committed to 16 consortia in the 2019 announcement of funding. The Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation is managing the DTIF with administrative support from Enterprise Ireland. The purpose of the Fund is to drive collaboration between Ireland’s world-class research base and industry as well as facilitating enterprises to compete directly for funding in support of the development and adoption of these technologies.

Ferritin is the principal storage protein for iron in tissues and is involved in its uptake, accumulation and release in cells. Current clinical measurement of ferritin is restricted to laboratory testing as no suitable quantitative point-of-care in vitro diagnostic solution exists. The FerrTest project aims to both develop disruptive technologies and automated manufacturing processes for a quantitative point-of-care platform to measure ferritin.