by business editor Trevor Sturgess

Patients can look forward to faster treatment times after a £2.8 million boost to Kent-based blood testing technology.

More jobs could be created after Vivacta, a medical diagnostic company based at Kent Science Park (KSP), Sittingbourne, secured new funding to commercialise its blood testing device that would speed up treatment times at doctors’ surgeries.

Vivacta’s sensitive piezo-film sensors will enable medics to give almost instant results because blood will no longer need to leave the surgery for analysis by centralised laboratories, a process that can take up to a fortnight.

After completion of a thyroid function test using its piezo-film technology, together with prototype commercial readers, Vivacta secured the finance from its existing investors, including AGF Private Equity, HBM Bioventures, Spark Ventures and the original sponsor Viking Technologies.

Vivacta, which started with four employees in 2005 and now has 33, started the clinical evaluation of the system and is confident it will secure regulatory clearance within 12 months. The firm has set up a pilot manufacturing facility to make small quantities of the blood testing device.

The first Vivacta devices could be in UK GP surgeries by the end of next year, although the firm is expected to focus initially on the United States market.

"We hope to have the product through the clinic and regulatory approvals by mid next year," said chief executive Neil Butler. "The second half of next year, we’d expect to see commercial sales. We’ve been working on it for two or three years. KSP has been instrumental in all that."

The firm will probably license the technology to larger firms and is in talks with US companies, some with UK subsidiaries. Mr Butler said the technology would create jobs but not necessarily many in Kent.

But workforce numbers at KSP were unlikely to stop at 33. "We wouldn’t expect headcount necesaarily to soar above 40 this side of next year. We will have to wait and see. It should be interesting times in the next few months."

He added: "The success of this financing round underpins the support we have from our shareholders and signals their confidence that our ultra-sensitive immunochemistry platform has the potential to become the benchmark for diagnosis at the point-of-care."

James Speck, KSP site director, said: "This is excellent news for Vivacta and proof positive that the park is home to ground-breaking companies which are able to excite investors. We have many businesses on site which, despite the current economic conditions, remain optimistic for the future and are eager to expand."