Biomedical company sets up in Memphis

A new biomedical technology created by students from Oxford University to test tuberculosis has opened diagnostic laboratories in Memphis, adding to facilities in the UK and Boston.

Dr. Peter Wrighton-Smith, a youthful-looking Englishman who founded a tuberculosis-testing company in his attic ten years ago commented: "I can safely say I never dreamt that one day I'd be here in Memphis opening this lab."

The company's primary product is called T-SPOT, which is a test for active and latent tuberculosis. Patients don't have to be inoculated under their skin with this new technique, which instead draws blood from the patient and sends the sample to a lab where results can be obtained within 36 hours.

Wrighton-Smith added: "Although the numbers of people in the United States developing this terrible disease have thankfully greatly reduced in the past 60 years, still, five million Americans carry the infection and another 15,000 get the disease each year."

Screening identifies those who've been infected so they can get the drugs to clear the infection before it develops.

Posted by Ben Evans