Shimadzu, Shionogi partner to explore wastewater viral infections

Japanese firms Shimadzu Corporation and Shionogi & Co. have inked the basic agreement of business partnership to target an early social implementation of wastewater surveillance for viruses in the field of infectious diseases, including the novel coronavirus. Shimadzu and Shionogi will establish a consortium toward the early social implementation of wastewater monitoring by PCR under this business partnership. Wastewater monitoring based on wastewater-based epidemiology has high expectations as a technology that can grasp the infection status of COVID-19. Shimazu and Shionogi will combine their strengths and cooperate with academia and partner companies to enable automatic detection of viruses in wastewater, infection status, and outbreak trends of mutant strains at an early stage by utilizing wastewater monitoring data. Shimadzu and Shionogi are aiming to build a social system for wastewater monitoring.