Cardiogenics Magnetic Beads Fact Sheet

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Summary
CardioGenics’ silver-coated paramagnetic beads (the “CardioGenics Beads”) represent a significant product advance over current similar commercial products. All commercial magnetic beads are made of dark iron oxide. CardioGenics has developed a proprietary process to plate magnetic beads with a layer of silver, making them white, and more sensitive to light. In testing against all commercially available beads, the CardioGenics Beads demonstrated a seven-fold improvement in light harvesting, which results in improved testing sensitivity. 
 
Market Background
► Due to simplicity in use and ease of manipulation, magnetic particles are the preferred solid phase for immobilizing biological material used in test kits developed for:

• Clinical laboratory testing analyzers (immunoassays/DNA binding)
• Life sciences research market
• Cell & nucleic acid separation
• Protein purification
• Sample enrichment

► Market of Magnetic Beads

• Global In Vitro Diagnostic (IVD) market estimated at $22.9 billion in 2002
• Expected growth of the IVD is 7% per year
• Immunoassay testing segment of this market is 40%
• About 90% of the immunoassay analyzers employ both magnetic particles and light measurements
• Estimated magnetic beads market is about $1 billion for immunoassay only (3rd party market report)

► Magnetic Beads Producers

• Several companies commercialize magnetic particles for biomedical research and in-vitro diagnostic applications
• All commercial products contain dark iron oxide material
• Current commercial manufacturing processes is by encapsulation of magnetic pigment inserted in a latex particle
• Three (3) main players, led by Merck Chimie, several small ones
• Prices range from $900-1500/gram of solids

► The CardioGenics Beads

• A 24 month developmental process supported by grants from National Research Council of Canada (NRC), 4 in total
• Proprietary silver-plating process, adapted to various sizes (1-50 micron) beads
• CardioGenics Beads plated with silver for color conversion (Black to White) 
• CardioGenics Beads are then polymer encapsulated
• CardioGenics developed its own polymer encapsulation process
• CardioGenics also produced beads to be encapsulated by its partner through their proprietary polymer encapsulation process
• CardioGenics encapsulated beads are manufactured by a simplified process
• Beads encapsulated by CardioGenics will be processed in batch sizes of “commercial lots”

Competitive Advantages
► Current commercial beads suffer from the following shortcomings:

• All commercial magnetic particles are dark
• About 80% of generated light, is lost which results in low testing sensitivity
• The manufacturing process is complicated and expensive

► The CardioGenics Beads offer the following advantages:

• Maximize light collection by white color conversion 
• High magnetic moment, easy manipulation
• Chemically-robust surface chemistry
• Simplified manufacturing process-- less costly
• Compared with beads of all major suppliers, the CardioGenics Beads show consistent ~7 fold improved light signal to address needs of IVD industry for more sensitive tests (published data).

Market Advantage
►Applications that would benefit from:

• Increased test sensitivity by at least ~5 fold, early diagnosis
• Easy sample manipulation
• Custom-made linking chemistry

Potential End Users
►Clinical In-Vitro Diagnostics test developers

• Ten (10) first tier global IVD test manufacturers
• Thirty (30) second tier IVD test manufacturers
• Numerous small regional manufactures

►Life sciences research applications, companies/universities

Future Markets:

• Proteins/ DNA Binding
• Cell sorting
• Nanoreactors
• Adaptation to POC/other instruments (non-competitive)