AI-biotech firm starts groundbreaking COVID diagnostics tool research in Malta

An AI-enabled biotech company will start developing a medical diagnostics tool for COVID-19 in Malta, facilitated with the financial support of €1 million received from Malta Enterprise.

OmniScope’s co-founder Dr Holger Heyn, the team leader at the National Centre for Genomic Analysis (CNAG-CRG), said the research and development places Malta at the heart of an international collaboration, with a Malta-based team of experts in AI and computational biology teaming up with OmniScope’s Spanish expert in genomics and its state of the art manufacturing partner in Singapore.

OmniScope’s first product, OmniScan, seeks to become a universal diagnostic tool that listens to the immune system to broadly detect disease at the earliest stages through simple, minimally invasive clinical tests.

“Our desire is for our cutting-edge technology to be of service to the global community in these challenging times of heightened emerging pandemic risks,” Heyn said.

“This financial support represents a true collaboration between nations to invest in much needed innovation. We aim to apply science to rapidly bring solutions we so urgently need right now.”

OmniScope is building an AI innovation team in Malta, where it wants to establish an international centre of excellence and innovation for bioinformatics and AI-enabled biotechnology.

OmniScope’s state-of-the-art production and manufacturing facilities in Singapore provide a fast-track to commercial availability for COVID-19 and other PCR & NGS test prototypes.

Commercial co-founder Vijay Vaswani said the Malta Enterprise financial support was a major growth opportunity for both OmniScope and Malta, his home country.

“Malta will be playing a central role in our international expansion. My great-grandfather came to Malta as a refugee in the early 1900s. OmniScope’s Malta operations are my way of giving back to Malta and expressing my gratitude, as his great-grandson. I’m proud to support the growth of talent, investment, and entrepreneurial opportunities in the country that has had such a profound impact on my life.”

Malta Enterprise CEO Kurt Farrugia said OmniScope’s decision to invest in Malta confirmed the island’s competitive proposition for all those who want to engage in highly innovative projects.