September 2021
Stellenbosch University startup BioCODE is developing a lab management software platform for COVID test laboratories to enable big corporates to do large-scale, lab-quality COVID tests for their employees.
BioCODE assists Axiology Labs, a South African laboratory equipment supply company, tracking processes and stock and wastage management. Gideon Burger, the founder of Axiology Labs, says their Long-term Survival and Health Solutions provide equipment, consumables, and service delivery to laboratories. They are also responsible for the management thereof.
BioCODE is a Stellenbosch-based company that is developing a sensor that can detect novel circulating inflammatory molecules in the blood. The three directors of BioCODE are Prof Resia Pretorius, head of Stellenbosch University’s Physiological Sciences Department in the Faculty of Science (Managing Director); Prof Anna-Mart Engelbrecht, a professor in the Department of Physiological Sciences at SU; and Prof Willie Perold, an electronic engineer in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Together with Este Burger and Simoné Turner. Innovus Technology Transfer has been working very closely with the team and supported them in protecting their intellectual property, setting up the company, entering into partnerships, raising funding, etc.
The BioCODE laboratory management platform – which they coined the Nat2.0 platform – improves diagnostics and ensures accurate wastage to ensure the laboratories run more effectively. “We are now able to look at all the diagnostic processes and shorten the turnaround time of crucial pathological services, enabling the efficient tracking of, for instance, the COVID testing process,” says Pretorius. “We can now keep track of all consumables to ensure efficient decision making in terms of stock usage for testing purposes. The platform enables us to track all processes and enable us to take immediate action to rectify wrong decision making.”
The founding members of BioCODE and Axiology met two years ago when both were pitching their ideas to the newly formed University Technology Fund (UTF). BioCODE was the first company to receive funding from the UTF for developing its rapid inflammation biosensor. The UTF recently approved their second funding application, and the R7 million grant will enable them to develop the biosensor to take to the market in its entirety.
