About AROTEC DIAGNOSTICS LIMITED
Our mission
AROTEC is committed to excellence. It is our mission to be your benchmark supplier of diagnostic reagents through an uncompromising effort to produce premium products and to provide quality service. Through our extensive R&D program we will continue to develop new and exciting products in response to your feedback. If your company also has a commitment to excellence, you have found the right partner in AROTEC DIAGNOSTICS.
Our success story
At AROTEC we have been producing and supplying premium reagents to the diagnostic industry since our incorporation in 1996. Through the years we have undertaken a concerted effort to produce both established and novel autoantigen reagents under stringent quality management procedures and with a huge emphasis on process control. We now boast an impressive product range which we expect to grow even further in the coming years. Native ENA antigens purified from calf thymus and ANCA antigens purified from human neutrophils have proven to be our most successful products. Tissue-specific and recombinant autoantigens are now in the pipeline. From a small company originally situated within the campus of Gracefield Research Centre (Wellington, New Zealand) the company has grown to a size that necessitated the recent relocation to a new facility some 5 km away at Petone, Wellington. We now stand ready to push on further with what we do best: the continued development, manufacturing and marketing of premium reagents for the diagnostic industry.
Our facility
As a science-based company we know that good science has two basic requirements: excellent people and a well-resourced laboratory. In 2003 AROTEC relocated to a modern, dedicated 500 sq.m. (5,000 sq.ft) facility situated at Petone on the Wellington harbour waterfront. Our laboratories are spacious and modern with a stunning view across Wellington harbour as an added bonus! Temperature-controlled areas are continuously monitored and logged. We have an impressive array of state-of-the-art equipment that is integrated into an extensive calibration and maintenance program. Key equipment and finished-product storage freezers are remote-monitored. All operations within our facility are incorporated into a formal quality management system ensuring complete documentation and traceability from raw materials to the end product. At our current location we are within easy reach of Wellington International Airport; this means our products can reach a number of important distribution hubs (Sydney, Los Angeles, Singapore) from our facility within 24 hours.
What we do
After several years of growth AROTEC remains a practical, hands-on science-based company – even now more than three-quarters of our staff are biochemistry/biotechnology graduates. We are purification experts – through years of experience our team possesses protein purification skills that allow us to master complex purification processes from analytical to bulk scale. A battery of protein analytical techniques complements our purification expertise; we carry out continuous in-process analysis during protein purification to maintain a maximum of process control and to ensure that the final product conforms absolutely to the required specifications. An extensive range of immunological and molecular biological techniques completes the package meaning that we are ready to tackle even the most ambitious project.
Our products
At AROTEC we believe that there is no compromising when it comes to quality. To purify quality reagents it is necessary to start with quality raw materials; autoantigens purified from animal tissue are from animals of exclusively New Zealand origin, the premium source material. Human blood fractions are obtained from certified blood centres with complete donor traceability and serology. Our commitment to quality is no more evident than in our range of purified autoantigen reagents which display he following outstanding characteristics:
- Purity – our autoantigens are highly pure (minimum specification >90% pure but often approaching >99% pure). We achieve this through meticulous “polishing” of the final product using high-resolution chromatographic techniques. This results in the virtual absence of contaminating substances thereby ensuring that assays developed using our autoantigens have very low background.
- Activity – our autoantigens are highly active and can be used to detect autoantibodies in ELISA even when coated at low concentrations (typically 10-100 ng/well is sufficient).
- Specificity - active immunoadsorption procedures where necessary followed by rigorous quality control ensures that our autoantigens are free of other autoantigens that might lead to false positive results.
- Reproducibility – lot-to-lot consistency is our strength. New lots are rigorously tested and compared to internal gold-standard lots to ensure they conform to specifications.
- Volume – we can produce autoantigen lots from analytical (a few milligrams) to bulk (approaching grams) amounts. Large lots eliminate the need for customers to continuously qualify new lots during production. Autoantigen lots can be reserved for established customers.
- Stability – our autoantigens exhibit outstanding stability characteristics and show no significant loss of activity over several years when stored appropriately.
- Availability – except under exceptional circumstances we maintain high inventory levels of our complete product range thereby ensuring punctual delivery.
- Value – excellent quality doesn’t mean that a product is unaffordable! We will make every effort to supply to you at competitive prices.
- Service – securing the order is not the end of the story for us. We will advise you on the best way to get your product safely delivered and how best to store and maintain it. We will communicate with you to make sure sufficient bulk product is available when required and for pilot samples to be despatched. We will gladly talk to you about a product lot reservation strategy that suits your production process. We are delighted to supply product performance and application data to the customer. Should any queries result from the use of our products we go to great lengths to follow up and help resolve the situation to the complete satisfaction of the customer.
Custom services
Looking for a novel reagent (antigen or antibody)? Need one of our products with a different specification? Have something that needs to be purified? At AROTEC we will look at anything – no project is too small! Our range of protein/antibody purification and conjugation techniques, and our experience with recombinant proteins may be just what you’re looking for. Talk to us about your project, whether you are looking for a custom service provider, or if you just want our feedback on what you are looking to do. We will take every effort to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of your business information.