▶ BIONOTE promoted its products and provided lectures by prominent veterinarians about their experiences of applying Vcheck F to clinical settings ▶ Strengthen veterinary network across all areas of the U.S. to expand market share Global leader in Veterinary Diagnostics and Biological Raw Materials BIONOTE Inc. announced on the 19th of January that its US Branch, BIONOTE USA, participated in VMX (Veterinary Meeting & EXPO), one of the largest veterinary conferences in the world held in Orlando, Florida between the 13th and 17th of January (local time). The VMX Conference is held in Orlando, Florida every year with over 15,000 members of the veterinary industry such as veterinarians, veterinary students, and veterinary technicians attending for various exchanges. Further, prominent speakers give lectures and companies unveil new products and technologies for animal clinics at the event.*Veterinary technicians: helps veterinarians in diagnosing patients effectively and performs surgery preparations, surgical assistance, and postoperative recovery observations. BIONOTE focused on promoting their point of care fluorescent immunoassay analyzer 'Vcheck F V200', which is the number 1 product globally in terms of market share, along with cardiac disease-related biomarker test reagents such as 'NT-proBNP', 'TnI' and hormone biomarker test reagents such as 'Cortisol'. BIONOTE's booth also featured lectures by prominent veterinarians (Dr. Elizabeth Rozanski, Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine / Dr. Luis Tarrido, Eden Veterinary Clinic / Dr. Geri Lake-Bakaar, Evolution Veterinary Specialists) on the subject of their experience of applying Vcheck F products in clinical settings and their experience of evaluating the products. A BIONOTE spokesperson stated "To increase awareness and market share in the U.S., we are actively participating in conferences to meet and promote to veterinarians in person, with the support of KOTRA's global support project for mid-sized companies" and that "We will continue to participate in various academic conferences and exhibitions across the United States to increase brand awareness". Meanwhile, BIONOTE successfully launched three types of Equine-related biomarker products (Foal IgG, Progesterone, SAA) last year to target the U.S. market, and plans to lead the Equine diagnostic reagent market by developing additional Equine products this year.
▶ D-dimer diagnostic kit for quantitative results in-house The sensitivity of BIONOTE's D-dimer kit, which can be used with the immunoassay analyzer Vcheck (V200 and V2400), has increased even more. During the secondary hemostasis of the blood clotting process, fibrin clots are produced, and they are degraded by plasmids into fibrin degradation products (FDP). D-dimer is one of the final degradation products of these processes and is considered a highly sensitive biomarker for coagulation activity.The biomarker can be used to detect excessive thrombus formation early, which can aid in screening for diseases related to thrombus, such as thromboembolism (TE) or disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC).D-dimer can be clinically utilized by testing patients with risk factors that may cause thromboembolism such as cancer, sepsis, pancreatitis, vascular disease, or immune-mediated diseases. Furthermore, it can also be utilized for preemptively preventing emergencies after surgery or to monitor the progress and effectiveness of antithrombotic therapy. A high correlation (R²=0.9289) was confirmed for the Vcheck measurements, in comparison with third-party analyzers with proven validity in canine D-dimer measurements, proving the Vcheck result's validity. A BIONOTE spokesperson stated, "The ability to screen for thrombus was improved by upgrading the performance (sensitivity) of the Vcheck D-dimer kit, which was first launched 5 years ago".The Vcheck analyzer can measure a total of 30 biomarkers including inflammation markers (CRP, SAA), pancreatitis markers (cPL, fPL), cardiac disease markers (NT-proBNP, Troponin I), kidney disease markers (SDMA), hormones (T4, TSH, Cortisol), antibody titer tests, as well as D-dimer.
▶ A webinar on the topic of 'Clinical Utility of NT-proBNP Cardia Biomarker in Diagnosis' was held on the 1st of December▶ Part two in the webinar series is planned for the 20th of December on the topic of 'Point-of-Care NT-proBNP in Diagnosis and Management of Cardiac Disease'The speaker of this webinar, Dr. Geri Lake-Bakaar, introduced Cardiac Biomarkers (NT-proBNP) which are greatly useful in the diagnosis of heart disease and evaluate patients' prognosis in dogs and cats.Dr. Geri Lake-Bakaar is an alumnus of Harvard and Cornell University and in 2013, she became a Board-certified veterinary specialist in Cardiology (DACVIM, Cardiology) from UC Davis. NT-proBNP can be used to screen for Occult Cardiomyopathy which doesn't have any clinical symptoms and especially be useful as a preanesthetic test or when the patient displays heart murmurs. Further, it can also be useful in determining whether the respiratory symptoms of the patient are caused by congestive heart failure or respiratory diseases.Increased levels of NT-proBNP in patients with heart disease are associated with impending heart failure, with a high probability of progressing to congestive heart failure in dogs above 1,500 pmol/L. In humans, NT-proBNP markers are also utilized clinically, and when the value decreases by more than 30%, the clinical prognosis can be determined to be good. On the other hand, when there is no change in the value or if there is an increase, it can be considered as an indicator of bad prognosis. However, the increased NT-proBNP levels could be due to heart failure, ischemia, and arrhythmia as well, so caution was advised in interpreting the results. In the case of commercially available qualitative measurement kits for feline NT-proBNP, while they can be used to exclude heart disease from the diagnostic differentials, it was emphasized that the results of quantitative tests should be used together with the qualitative results because false positives are common in quantitative tests. On the other hand, the NT-proBNP kit from BIONOTE Inc., which provides accurate quantitative results on-site in just a couple of minutes using the Vcheck equipment, was mentioned as a clinically useful method for diagnosis by Dr. Lake-Bakaar. On Wednesday the 20th of December, Dr. Lake-Bakaar will hold the second part of the cardiac biomarker webinar series, specifically on the topic of 'Point-of-Care NT-proBNP in Diagnosis and Management of Cardiac Disease'. In this webinar, she will provide more detailed information on how NT-proBNP levels are useful in monitoring treatment plans in hospitalized patients of patients receiving outpatient treatments.The webinar is free for anyone to join through the QR code and will start at 10 am Korean Standard Time (KST).