In 2008, SOLVO Biotechnology, 77 Elektronika, T-sejt Orvosdiagnosztika together with the Medical Schools of University of Szeged, Debrecen and Pécs formed a consortium and successfully applied for a 408 million HUF (approx. EUR 1.500.000) grant to develop and commercialize the IVD-MDQ test and the prototype of a laboratory analyzer. The project was supported by the National Development Agency (NKTH).
The aim of the project was to develop, validate and commercialize an in vitro diagnostic (IVD) test that is able to predict multidrug transporter related resistance to the standard first-line therapies in malignant and autoimmune diseases, allowing personalized medication. More specifically, the kit was to be able to detect MDR protein function of three clinically significant drug efflux transporters - namely the MDR1/Pgp, the BCRP and the MRP1 by quantitative flow cytometry from peripheral blood or bone marrow samples.
The project included the validation of the kit against international lab (CLSI) standards with the participation of three university departments. Furthermore, a prospective multicentre cohort study was completed for clinical performance evaluation in five clinical centres.
Four hundred and ninety-one patients were enrolled in the study in five different patient groups, including 120 healthy individuals as the reference population, 90 SLE patients, 41 RA patients, 108 AML and 132 CLL patients.
Parallel to this study, the SOLVO MDQ Kit™ was approved as a CE IVD clinical test.
SOLVO MDQ Kit™ became the first commercially available CE-IVD approved clinical diagnostics for the detection of MDR protein function (MDR1, MRP1, and BCRP) by quantitative flow cytometry.
MDQuest was established in 2013 by SOLVO Biotechnology to commercialize the results of the R&D project. A financial partner was sought to launch the SOLVO MDQ Kit™ on the market and to support further clinical studies, thus a cooperation commenced with Széchenyi Capital Fund Management Zrt. (SZTA). As a result of the SZTA capital investment, MDQuest began its operation, creating new jobs and opening a state-of-the art research laboratory.