Asahi Kasei Pharma is launching the sale of Ribotest™ Legionella in Japan on February 1, 2019, as a new product in the Ribotest™ series of extracorporeal diagnostic kits. Ribotest™ Legionella assists the diagnosis of Legionnaires’ disease by enabling the detection of all 15 serogroups of Legionella pneumophila.

Developed with Asahi Kasei Pharma’s antibody technology utilizing the L7/L12 protein of the legionella bacterium, Ribotest™ Legionella enables the rapid diagnosis of infection by Legionella pneumophila, the most prevalent cause of Legionnaires’ disease. As this disease tends to progress quickly and lead to a severe condition, early diagnosis and prompt treatment are considered to be critical.

While the currently available rapid diagnostic test kits can only detect serogroup 1 of Legionella pneumophila, Ribotest™ Legionella can detect all 15 serogroups. The new kit is thus expected to make a significant contribution to the rapid diagnosis of Legionnaires’ disease. It will be sold by Alere Medical Co., Ltd. and Kyokuto Pharmaceutical Industrial Co., Ltd.

Overview of Ribotest™ Legionella

Measurement method

Immunochromatography¹

Purpose of measurement

Detection of Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1LPS antigen and legionella pneumophila L7/L12 antigen in urine (aiding diagnosis of Legionnaires’ disease)

Measurement time

15 minutes

Date of marketing approval

August 21, 2018

Manufactured and distributed by

Asahi Kasei Pharma Corp.

Distributed by

Alere Medical Co., Ltd.
Kyokuto Pharmaceutical Industrial Co., Ltd.

1. ¹ An immunoassay method that utilizes an antigen-antibody reaction. It enables simple determination of a positive or negative result by the visual observation of the presence or absence of a colored line, without the need for any special equipment.