[Interview] Son Mi-Jin, CEO of Sugentech "The diagnosis of blood-based tuberculosis is the world's first...Global Prospects for Advancement" 

Susentech kit, TB diagnosis results in a 2- to 4-40 minute reduction
Malaysia Clinical Progress...Prospects of Authority Permit in the First Half of next year
Sample tube holder, diagnosis of multiple allergies with blood at once
"Entering overseas markets within two years...Global In vitro Diagnosis Enterprise"

In a recent interview with NewsPim, Sugentech CEO Son Mi-jin expressed pride about the tuberculosis diagnosis kit, which was approved by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety on July 9. He stressed that while many people think of tuberculosis as a past condition, there are many tuberculosis patients in Asia and Russia, and that about 30% of the population in Korea is latent tuberculosis patients.

"When diagnosed with tuberculosis, we prescribe medicine for six months, and there is no way to monitor it even if it gets better while taking the medicine," Sohn said. "The World Health Organization has started developing it with interest because it says that anti-nuclear diagnosis that can be diagnosed with tuberculosis should be developed with blood."

Sugentech's diagnostic kit is the world's first to diagnose tuberculosis with blood, and if the blood collected is put into the diagnostic kit and examined with diagnostic equipment, the results will be immediately known after 40 minutes.

Tuberculosis is one of the three major infectious diseases that the WHO focuses on, and since 10 million new active tuberculosis patients occur and 1.6 million die each year, international demand is clear, and it is also pushing for the global advancement of the tuberculosis diagnostic kit.

Sohn expressed expectations that the company is in talks with Malaysia's health authorities, including clinical design, and expects to get Malaysia's permission in the first half of next year as it will wrap up its clinical tests a year later.

Not only Malaysia, but also China are discussing clinicians and IRs. "China has strong regulations and it takes more than three years for Chinese manufacturers to get permits," Sohn said. "We plan to use ODM (Original Development Manufacturing) to supply products or goods to vendors that have secured distribution networks."

It is also noteworthy that Sujentec obtained a patent for "sample tube holder" related to allergy diagnosis on July 11. Until now, there has been no way to diagnose allergies, the cause of skin rashes, except for a skin terminal examination, in which a substance is directly stabbed into the skin to see skin reactions.

Sohn said, "In case of peanut allergies, it is dangerous for those affected by the allergies to come into shock." "If the skin terminal test only diagnosed one allergy through one test, the multi-immune block diagnoses 17 types of autoimmune disease-related antibodies."

There are 150 multi-immune blots installed in the nation's advanced general hospital and examination center, with the patented "sample tube holder" being a follow-up model to the multi-mimmunity blot, and expanded to 22 kinds of food and 16 kinds of allergy tests on inhalation-type products with a drop of blood.

"We are currently supplying 411 multi-immune blots to China's natural and Guangdong provinces, but if we include additional ones this year, we will deploy a total of 500 units," Sohn said. "Since continuous demand will come from places where equipment is installed, we are planning to push for commercialization in Middle East markets."

"Sugentech has diverse pipelines, including early diagnosis of dementia and diagnosis of dementia diseases, based on its in vitro diagnosis technology," Sohn said. "As we can enter foreign markets within two years, we will become a global in vitro diagnosis company by expanding the market."