Enterprise storiesDorit Arad, MND, and the business of diagnostic tests for viral pandemics

Israeli scientist Dorit Arad was living and working in the United States when the SARS (Severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic broke out in 2002. SWhe was alramed. The outbreak of the highly contagious respiratory disease, which lasted from November 2002 to July 2003, caused the death of 774 people — a mortality rate of 9.6 percent. “I was panicked,” Arad told told Israel21c’s Nicky Blackburn. “I even started wearing a mask.” The anxiety, though, gave her an idea: One of the problems with this pneumonia-like disease was diagnosis, which was expensive, slow, and had a high rate of false positive results. In deed, during the outbreak, anyone in a risky area with a fever was hastily shut into quarantine, sometimes for as long as two months. “It was effective because it stamped out the disease, but it was crazy,” says Arad. She realized that what was needed was a new diagnostic tool which could let doctors diagnose potential pandemic illnesses, such as SARS or influenza, on site, in minutes.

Arad was working at the time on the development of antiviral drugs for eXegenics (in spring 2007 eXegenics merged with Acuity Pharmaceuticals and Froptix to create Opko Corp., which is based in Miami, Florida). For the next four years Arad worked on developing diagnostic tests for viral pandemics — not only SARS, but for other illnesses such as Cytomegalovirus (CMV), meningitis, influenza, and even the common cold — and these test kits are now going through proof of concept and could be out on the market in eighteen months.

The diagnostic kit, which is being developed by Arad’s own company, Modules for Novel Diagnostics(MND) (see below) is simple to use. Saliva, blood, or even CF fluid is added to the test tube kit and if a virus is present, the fluid within the test tube becomes fluorescent or changes color within two to 10 minutes. Blackburn writrs that the test can be carried out at any public location and is designed for large-scale use at airports, government agencies, healthcare organizations, hospitals, and clinics. Especially important is the fact that there is no need for laboratory intervention or expensive equipment, and the test has a low false positive rate. The test can also be used to detect multiple viruses at one time. “The test is very sensitive and is completely new. Unlike existing diagnostic