Oct. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Cellestis Ltd., an Australian developer of medical diagnostic tests, surged the most in a month on the nation's exchange after winning U.S. approval for a new kit that checks for tuberculosis.
Cellestis shares jumped 35 cents, or 13 percent, to A$3.05 on the Australian Stock Exchange after Melbourne-based Cellestis said in a statement today it received approval from the Food and Drug Administration to sell its QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube test.
The test, which can be used to diagnose as many as 2,000 people a day, will replace the company's existing QFT-Gold product for detecting TB, said Tony Radford, the company's chief executive officer, in a telephone interview today.
Sales of QuantiFERON products in the U.S. brought in about A$10 million ($9 million) last year, Radford said. Revenue at the company has ``been doubling every year,'' he said.
The U.S. military has been using QuantiFERON at its Brooks Air Force Base in Texas, and Cellestis will discuss a contract that may be worth as much as $15 million with the military, Radford said.
The company has had increased interest for its products since Atlanta lawyer Andrew Speaker took two trans-Atlantic flights while infected with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, Radford said.
``The Andrew Speaker incident crystallizes the basic problem of TB -- it's highly mobile and it's becoming more and more resistant,'' he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Simeon Bennett in Singapore at [email protected] .Martin
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