A Decade of UK Success for ScheBo Biotech

Ivor Smith joined ScheBo^®• Biotech to set up the UK branch of the company and remains its Managing Director. He says: “We are celebrating ten years of dedicated personal service to our customers in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The last decade has been remarkably successful for us.”

ScheBo^®• Biotech AG was founded in Germany by husband and wife biochemists, Dr Hans Scheefers and Dr Ursula Scheefers-Borchel. They remain Chief Executives of the privately-owned company – which is also celebrating the 20th Anniversary of its formation.

During the last decade, ScheBo^®• Biotech’s Pancreatic Elastase-1 Stool Test (commonly called the faecal elastase test) has become an industry standard.

Ivor Smith says: “It’s amazing to think that ten years ago, this test was only known by a handful of clinicians dealing with cystic fibrosis and pancreatic disease, and was used in just a few hospital laboratories. It is now probably the best known and most frequently used laboratory test for detecting pancreatic exocrine insufficiency in the UK, as well as in Germany and a number of other countries.”

Pursuing its philosophy of continuous product development, ScheBo^®• Biotech has made various refinements to the test since its introduction. These include the launch of the Quick-Prep™ device which has made sample processing faster and more acceptable to laboratory staff. In addition, the use of a complex of anti-E1-Biotin and POD streptavidin substantially reduced the overall incubation time to 65 minutes. Another improvement was the use of strips that could be broken into individual wells (thereby avoiding some wells in a strip remaining unused).

The company has extended its product range with further innovative developments. These include the use of dimeric M2 pyruvate kinase (M2-PK) as a tumour-associated metabolic marker. The stool test has already proved to be a powerful but simple screening tool for colorectal cancer. The high sensitivity of faecal M2-PK promises to decrease the number of ‘missed’ bowel cancers. Meanwhile, the blood test (EDTA-plasma) can be used in patient monitoring as well as in the diagnosis of many different solid tumours.

Another exciting development in the UK has been the marketing of the faecal lactoferrin tests. Faecal lactoferrin is a reliable biomarker for detecting gastrointestinal inflammation and can be used to differentiate between irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The IBD EZ VUE^® rapid test delivers results just ten minutes after adding the diluted stool sample to the cassette (which resembles a “pregnancy test”).

In addition, the IBD-SCAN^®• quantitative ELISA test enables the efficacy of therapy to be monitored and the recurrence of inflammation in ulceratice colitis or Crohn’s disease to be detected through changes in lactoferrin levels. A study by IBD expert Dr John Mansfield and his colleagues in Newcastle-upon-Tyne was recently published in the British Journal of Surgery. This demonstrated that faecal lactoferrin levels were a more accurate predictor of disease activity in post-operative Crohn’s disease patients than conventional markers (CRP, platelet count) or endoscopy, and also identified disease recurrence.

Ivor Smith concludes: “The M2-PK and faecal lactoferrin tests have tremendous potential. I believe that over the next decade, they will repeat the success we’ve already experienced with the faecal elastase test. I’m convinced they will become future tests of choice.”