BTI Researchers Put Out Tabasco Sauce to Heat Up Interest in Their Technology At AIDS2000 Conference.

Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers

BIOWIRE2K

DURBAN, South Africa--(BW HealthWire)--July 11, 2000

Bio-Tech Imaging Inc. (BTI) is distributing samples of Tabasco(R) sauce from its booth in the exhibition center at the AIDS2000 conference in Durban, South Africa.

BTI's goal is to spice-up interest in a BTI procedure that may revolutionize the way HIV testing will be done in the future.

"Discussing our science at AIDS 2000 is an obvious mile stone for us," said BTI's President Chester King. "We believe our technology will revolutionize the way the medical community detects and tracks the level of infection in HIV+ people. We can find and isolate the HIV-infected cells themselves.

"This focus on the productively infected cell is a more direct approach than seeking out HIV-related genetic materials or evidence of the body's reaction to the disease that are the bases for current methods."

BTI's unique procedure for assessing the presence of the HIV infection, known as Tag And Drag (TAD), will cost less than procedures currently used to detect HIV. Moreover, using antibodies, fluorescing tags and microbeads, the patented BTI procedure has produced results in vitro within only 48-72 hours after samples have been inoculated with HIV.

Moreover, the results are available within hours with TAD rather than the usual days (or weeks) that other tests presently take. The BTI system requires less sophisticated laboratory support systems than current methods.

The advantages of early detection are obvious, especially in Africa where people with HIV die more quickly than in developed countries because what therapy is available is delayed and/or because infection has not been detected until it is too late.

While currently a research-use only tool, BTI's procedure could significantly enhance vaccine and drug research work. Using BTI's TAD procedure labs can test the effect of a vaccine or drug on HIV-positive samples, and tell within days whether it is having the desired effect, rather than waiting for a week or two to get micro-culture results.

Thus pharmaceutical companies may be able to develop better drugs and the desperately needed vaccines much sooner.

BTI is releasing its first research-use only product as early as September this year, the gp120 Cell Expression Kit. Studies now in progress are being conducted to determine the usefulness of this rapid method for monitoring the disease in HIV-positive patients -- particularly those on therapies that make it difficult for existing methods to detect the infection.

BTI is building a major production facility in Louisiana -- home of Tabasco -- that is intended to begin making blood screening products in 2001.

At the AIDS2000 conference, Dr. Jeffrey Fessel (of Kaiser-Permanente) discussed the results of his use of BTI's Tag And Drag technology on a group of AIDS patients. The clinical trial began in early 1999 and concluded in April 2000. Fessel is the director of the Clinical Trials Unit at Kaiser Permanente's HIV Research Center in San Francisco.

The trial was conducted to evaluate the TAD concept as a better method for monitoring HIV patients who are receiving drug therapy.

BTI will have three representatives at the conference to attend scientific sessions and discuss the technology with conference participants at the BTI booth in the exhibition hall. Dr. Virginia Salas is BTI's director of Clinical Laboratory Science at the company's research center in New Mexico. Susan Young is director of Biotechnical Services, also at the New Mexico facility.

Jennifer Grayson is BTI's director of Regulatory Affairs. She came to BTI from the U.S. FDA and works at the company's headquarters in Frederick, Md.

Bio-Tech Imaging is a research and development company with headquarters in Frederick and research facilities in Albuquerque, N.M.