Dublin, Ireland (9th July 2008) Dr Cormac Kilty, founder and CEO of Biotrin Group Limited is pleased to announce the successful spin-out of Biotrin’s biomarker of organ damage business into a new company, Argutus Medical Limited. The spin-out was completed earlier this month and preceded the sale of Biotrin’s infectious disease business to the Italian diagnostics company, DiaSorin S.p.A.
Argutus Medical is a stand-alone company that is being funded by its current shareholders, Dr Cormac Kilty, management and Enterprise Ireland. Argutus has an experienced management team in place. Kilty will take on the role of Chairman. The company plans to grow to 15 in the first year and 22 in the second year of operations. Argutus Medical will focus on expanding its portfolio of tests to monitor organ damage and entering new markets, particularly the near patient acute kidney injury market place, valued at over €600 million.
Biotrin has invested heavily in the biomarker business in recent years, allowing it to grow its sales line, develop new products and build a strong portfolio of patents which together will underpin the future growth plans of Argutus Medical in fields such as the early detection of kidney injury in the Intensive Care Unit and diabetes where its tests have been shown in trials to be early indicators of kidney injury in these patients.
“We have invested considerable time and effort into developing our biomarker business and decided several months ago that spinning out the business was the right move for the business to give it more focus” said Dr Cormac Kilty.
“Our biomarker business has an active customer base of researchers and scientists worldwide, with sales expected to top €1.5 million this year; we feel that with focused management and the right resources we can achieve much more and enter the much larger clinical markets. We are currently looking at our options for injecting new funds into the company and are in negotiations with several interested parties.”
“We believe that Argutus Medical could eventually evolve into the standard of care for diagnosing and monitoring acute kidney injury in the hospital setting, a complication that affects approximately 5% of all hospitalized patients annually.”

Editorial Note:
Key Senior Management transferring from Biotrin:
Vicky McGrath – Head of Business Development
Joe Keenan – Head of Sales and Marketing
Kerstin Schuster – R&D Manager

For further information please contact:
Dr Cormac Kilty at +353 (1) 283 1857 or +353 (86) 244 3059