Xenomics Files U.S. Patent Application for HIV Detection Test

Xenomics, a developer of medical DNA technologies, has filed a U.S. patent application for its technology enabling the detection of HIV based on its Transrenal DNA (Tr-DNA) technology, which uses simple, easily obtained urine samples.

Xenomics' Tr-DNA technology platform detects fragments of genetic material that traverse the kidneys and are eventually eliminated in the urine. Its tests are further distinguished by their ability to simultaneously detect in a single urine sample both HIV and tuberculosis, a common opportunistic infection in AIDS patients. The sensitivity of Xenomics' technology may hold important implications for the improved diagnosis and treatment of residual HIV infections where the existing viral load test is barely detectable, or not detectable at all in AIDS patients.

The patent application for the HIV test comes in the wake of Xenomics' recently filed U.S. patent application for its Tr-DNA test for tuberculosis. The company believes that these tests may enable the creation of more sensitive and accurate medical diagnostic procedures that can be performed through simple, safe and relatively inexpensive analyses of the patients' urine specimens.