Advances in Vertical Flow Leave Lateral Flow Behind

RVF tests are versatile, self-contained, fast and can be conducted anywhere.

MedMira’s Kevin Jones, Senior Director of Global Sales and Marketing, gave a talk about Rapid Vertical Flow (RVF) Technology and its ability to yield faster, more accurate results during the 2014 American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) Annual Meeting and Clinical Lab Expo. The Company launched new applications of the technology at the show: three RVF tests for simultaneously detecting different combinations of syphilis, HIV and hepatitis C.

During his session, Jones highlighted the many advantages of RVF over the more common lateral flow testing, the underlying technology for home pregnancy tests, which were first sold more than two decades ago.

Compared to lateral flow, RVF excels by being able to multiplex, with a faster test time, and a level of accuracy that cannot be matched by competing products.

A unique feature of testing applications built upon the RVF platform is the ability to deliver multiple results from a single drop of blood, within two minutes of the addition of the sample to the test cartridge. There is no other technology that will give the same comprehensive, simultaneous diagnostic information in a point-of-care setting, in the same time.

In practice there are other significant features of RVF technology that differentiate tests built on this platform. In tests using lateral flow technology, if the user adds too much sample, a false negative result is possible. This is caused by an overwhelming amount of antigen present, which is a common problem with lateral flow testing and limits a dynamic range of the tests.

“It doesn’t matter how much sample you add (to an RVF test), you will still get a result which is a true reactive or a true non-reactive,” said Jones. “We are talking about something that is very sensitive, very simple, very fast and because it can be multiplexed, it can give you a lot of results at the same time.”

Jones noted a study published by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that compared RVF performance against the results of other types of rapid tests and ELISA. The paper concluded that the rapid HIV test built on MedMira RVF Technology gave the same results as third-generation ELISA tests.

“We could detect HIV infection around the same time that an ELISA test could,” Jones said. “If you compare that with lateral flow, we were between 8-12 days faster than the competing lateral flow tests, and with our FDA-approved product we are also 99.8% specificity.”

RVF Technology delivers fast, cost-effective results. To help people understand just how much they could save, the TEMPO app has been recently developed and can illustrate to users how much time and money they can save when compared with competing products. For more information on TEMPO please contact MedMira support.

RVF tests are extremely versatile, self-contained, very fast and can be conducted anywhere. Additionally, the basic test technology can be used with almost any sample type, not just in the medical area but also more generally in the biotech market. As the need for point-of-care testing becomes more prominent across a broad range of industries and applications, RVF Technology will be a key contributor in advancing the sensitivity, testing time, cost-effectiveness, and simplicity of the process.

Read this overview to get a quick snapshot of RVF technology’s benefits compared to current rapid diagnostic tests.