Universal Biosensors, Inc (UBI) was incorporated in Delaware on the14th of September, 2001. At the same time, UBI's wholly owned operating subsidiary, Universal Biosensors Pty Ltd, was formed in Australia. The group was formed to exploit an innovative electrochemical sensor platform that emerged from work by UBI's founding scientific team.
In April 2002, UBI completed a deal with Lifescan, Inc. a Johnson & Johnson company in which Lifescan took ownership of the electrochemical cell technologies and granted UBI a license for these technologies outside of the field of diabetes and blood glucose management generally. LifeScan maintained the rights for blood glucose monitoring and engaged UBI to develop a new blood glucose test.
In 2006, UBI listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. UBI subsequently established world class manufacturing facilities at Rowville and now has capacity to undertake commercial scale manufacture of point of care tests.
In November 2009, LifeScan's UBI-designed strip and meter system, One Touch Verio®, received its initial regulatory clearance to sell in Europe and the product has subsequently been launched across Europe and Australia.
As part of its efforts to create new products from the electrochemical cell platform, UBI has carried out its own research and development activities on a range of point-of-care dry assay blood tests. The most advanced of these is its Prothrombin Time test for monitoring the blood clotting tendency in patients taking Warfarin. Development is also underway on an immunoassay test strip which could address a range of opportunities in the growing clinical chemistry point of care segment as well as opportunities in cardiac marker testing. All of these tests are based on the underlying electrochemical cell technology platform, although UBI continues to develop new intellectual property as a result of its R&D efforts.