York, U.K. 7 March 2023: Abingdon Health plc (AIM: ABDX), a leading international lateral flow contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO), announces the granting of an additional patent for its AppDx ® lateral flow smartphone reader.
AppDx ® is a software development kit (SDK) for reading colorimetric lateral-flow tests (LFT) organized for Android™ and iOS® smartphone operating systems. AppDx ® enables lateral-flow test readout from your pocket, enabled by a smartphone camera, that can be used by any user app. It consists of a software Application Programming Interface (API) accessed as a library which contains algorithms for image processing and deep learning in order to read a lateral-flow test using a smartphone. The algorithms need to be customized and tuned for each test. The Abingdon Health AppDx ® algorithm reads the lateral flow device qualitatively (e.g. positive/negative) and semi-quantitively (e.g. negative/high/medium/low). A key point of differentiation is that the algorithm may be located on the smartphone, therefore not requiring a Wifi connection or 4G connection. It can also be provided as a web server-based solution.
The granted patent (GB 2601978) relates to the use of a plurality of captured images to provide a more refined algorithm which allows variations in imaging conditions to be averaged out and/or outliers removed. This allows the algorithm to counteract typically seen issues with measuring lateral flow devices such as specks of dust, reflections other artefacts and importantly different lighting conditions. These are important factors when considering the use of lateral flow tests in a range of different environments such as the home, doctor’s office, veterinary office, farm or field. This innovation therefore is of critical importance in enabling the application of AppDx ® commercially across a range of applications.
This is the third patent granted to Abingdon Health in relation to AppDx ®, including the granting of patent GB 2583419 which covers the use of neural-network based detection of lateral-flow tests, extracting the region-of-interest, and processing the data to calculate the values of the assay lines. This covers the two-stage pipeline where the assay area is extracted from the picture and image processing algorithms measure the line values and positions.
Chris Yates, CEO of Abingdon Health plc, commented: “We are pleased to announce the granting of a further patent for our AppDx ® smartphone lateral flow reader. Given the expected rapid growth in the lateral flow self-test market we believe the use of smartphone apps, such asAppDx®, will be critical in allowing widespread adoption of lateral flow rapid-testing.
“This patent grant underlines Abingdon’s focus on innovation to support its customers and we now look forward to initiating commercial discussions to bring this product to market.”
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