• Aim to accelerate global business and entry into the public market based on highly reliable results
  • Grant will be used for clinical performance evaluation and cost-effectiveness analysis of miLab™ platform for next 3 years

24th March, 2023– Noul Co. Ltd (CEO : David Lim) announced that it has signed an agreement with the RIGHT Foundation to confirm its marketability in malaria endemic countries in Africa and Asia and conduct clinical performance evaluation. For next 3 years, about 4 billion KRW (3.1 million USD) grant that Noul received from the RIGHT Foundation will be used for the clinical performance evaluation and cost-effectiveness analysis of miLab™ platform in Africa and Asia.

To secure reliable result, Noul will cooperate with global institutions and national malaria programs such as PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health), Swiss TPH (Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute), GIDC (Ghana Infectious Disease Center), MNMCP(Malawi National Malaria Control Program) and University of Notre Dame in the U.S. 

Malaria is a disease that affects over 200 million people annually, thus has a significant demand for diagnosis, but recent gene mutations that make diagnosis difficult using conventional RDT(rapid diagnostic tests), as well as issues with drug resistance, have made diagnosis challenging. Through this agreement, Noul and The RIGHT Foundation plan to conduct clinical performance evaluation comparing miLab™’s diagnostic accuracy to the gold standard method of microscopy. Also, both parties will analyze the value and cost-effectiveness of miLab™ platform in the global healthcare market, and accelerate market entry through local product registration.

David Lim, CEO of Noul stated “Through this agreement with the RIGHT Foundation, Noul will contribute to improving global health equity while striving to generate the next level of business based on the references. We will continue to cooperate with various institutions around the world to expand miLab™ platform as the global standard for malaria microscopy diagnosis, which is performed over 200 million times annually. ”

The RIGHT Foundation is a global health research funding foundation through the public-private partnership between the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Republic of Korea, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), to address the medical and technological needs towards alleviating the burden of infectious diseases especially in developing countries. The RIGHT Foundation provides a platform to catalyze collaborations between Korean and international researchers, product developers and public health workers to develop essential health technologies as global public good with the ultimate goal of improving health and health equity globally.

Noul’s miLab™ diagnostic platform is a compact all-in-one blood diagnosis platform that combines cartridge, solid-based next-generation staining and immunostaining stamping technology, and artificial intelligence. Sample preprocessing, blood imaging, and reading functions are all performed within a miniaturized device, providing help in performing diagnostic tests in the field of blood and tissue cells in environments without large equipment or laboratories. In the report, Malaria Diagnostics Market and Technology Landscape 4th edition, Unitaid stated ‘the most advanced digital microscopes are fully integrated benchtop platforms from Noul’.

miLab™ is used at Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, Carlos III Health Institute in Spain, the National Center for Malaria & Vector Control in United Arab Emirate and Boston Chldren’s Hospital in the U.S. Based on these references, miLab™’s use is rapidly increasing in African countries with malaria.

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