BALTIMORE and BRESCIA, Italy – BD Diagnostics, a segment of global medical technology company BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), and Biodiversity SpA, a private biotechnology company focusing on molecular diagnostics, announced today a regional collaboration to develop and commercialize a comprehensive molecular diagnostic menu for immunocompromised patients on the BD MAX™ System. This portfolio will be designed to improve monitoring of infections in transplant patients and will accelerate BD’s time to market with the BD MAX platform’s open-capability architecture.

“This collaboration combines the BD MAX System’s advanced automation and open system capabilities with Biodiversity’s broad portfolio and track record at bringing to market molecular assays for the management of transplant patients,” said Tom Polen, President, BD Diagnostics — Diagnostic Systems. “This will empower laboratories with a new choice to improve the efficiency, accuracy and speed to diagnose these types of infections. Our collaboration with Biodiversity also represents another milestone in developing the BD MAX System as the platform of choice to meet our customers’ current and future molecular needs.”

Following a transplant, patients are typically treated with drugs designed to suppress their immune system to prevent rejection. In this immunocompromised state, patients can be at high risk for infection. Early and accurate diagnosis of infection is often essential to monitor and protect patient health following a transplant procedure. Assays developed under the collaboration for the BD MAX System can expand testing capabilities for molecular laboratories with the ability to run many different assays and samples simultaneously, which can lead to faster testing results and potentially earlier diagnosis for patients.

“With molecular testing established as the standard of care for managing transplant patients, the BD MAX System will allow testing to be conducted with a standardized and fully automated workflow. At Biodiversity, our extensive assay experience in molecular transplant diagnostics is ideally positioned to capitalize on the technological advantages of the BD MAX System, making it possible to deliver a major advance in terms of efficiency, accuracy and ease-of-use for laboratories,” said Giovanni Mantero, Chief Executive Officer, Biodiversity SpA.

Under the terms of the agreement, Biodiversity will develop a portfolio of molecular assays for the detection of infections in immunocompromised patients using the BD MAX System’s open architecture.