Social enterprise companies strive to maximize profits whilst making positive impacts on society and the environment. Fast MDx Ltd, a London-based social enterprise, believes that their innovative molecular diagnostics test platform, the NGX 124, will revolutionize the early detection and quarantining of highly infectious diseases to prevent the spread of pandemics in the future.

Molecular diagnostics are used in high-income countries and some middle-income regions but are not widely available due to high costs, lack of healthcare infrastructure, and shortages of trained biomedical scientists.

Fast MDx has partnered with one the giants of German automation, Festo, to overcome these barriers with the NGX 124 test platform, which has received European CE-IVDr marking, as a low-cost, automated molecular diagnostic solution, designed for use in all locations, regardless of their remoteness.
At the heart of the platform is a new patented, ultra-fast qPCR thermal cycler, that works by moving a highly thermally conductive 96-well microtitre plate between 2 heater blocks, to perform the denaturation and the extension and annealing steps, whilst taking fluorimetry readings on the fly.

A key innovation of the NGX 124 is that it is the first fully open system to run Laboratory Developed Tests (LDT), Research Use Only (RUO), and validated assays from independent manufacturers, disrupting the current market dominance of closed, expensive test platforms, from multinational life science corporations.

Opening up the assay market to large-scale production is expected to drive down assay costs, making molecular diagnostics more affordable and accessible in all economies of the world.

Designed to be mobile, the NGX 124 can be deployed in remote settings, allowing clinicians to quickly diagnose and treat patients on-site. Day-to-day use will be to test for routine infections, with the system being easily switched, when necessary, to testing for outbreaks of highly infectious diseases, like Mpox and Avian flu, enabling immediate quarantining measures to be put in place.

“The company’s mission is to lower testing costs, report results faster, and at the same time reduce the carbon footprint of molecular diagnostic testing,” said Richard Lewis, Fast MDx’s founder and CEO. He went on to say, “Treating patients quickly, prevents their further deterioration and will help to speed their recovery, offering better long-term outcomes. Less treatment reduces healthcare costs as well as the pressure of scarce and expensive high dependency care units.”

The NGX 124 platform appears to be a significant step forward in global healthcare, offering a cost-effective and scalable solution to early disease detection and prevention. By making molecular diagnostics accessible to all, Fast MDx appears poised to play a crucial role in improving public health and in the prevention of future pandemics.