PositiveID Corporation, an emerging growth company and developer of sophisticated airborne bio-threat detection systems for America's homeland defense, today announced the Company and its M-BAND System for biothreat detection are featured in the current issue of Bloomberg Businessweek in an article on the estimated $5.7 billion BioWatch procurement by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ("DHS"). BioWatch is a nationwide bio-surveillance system designed to detect the intentional release of select aerosolized biological agents.
PositiveID's M-BAND, its Microfluidics-based Bioagent Autonomous Networked Detector, was developed under contract for DHS, and is an early warning system designed to detect the intentional release of aerosolized biological agents. It runs autonomously for up to 30 days between service cycles, continuously analyzing air samples, typically in high-traffic areas, for the detection of bacteria, viruses, and toxins with results in as little as three hours. Results from individual M-BAND instruments are reported via a secure wireless network in real time to give an accurate and up to date status for fielded instruments in aggregate. Designed with a high level of operational flexibility, M-BAND can be remotely set to detect for DNA-based pathogens alone, with or without either RNA-based organisms or toxins, or for all three types of pathogens simultaneously at remotely programmable intervals.
William J. Caragol, Chairman and CEO of PositiveID, said, "We believe we are well positioned to compete for Generation 3 of the BioWatch program and we continue to work toward the expected deployment of our bioaerosol detectors. We are extremely proud of our accomplishments in the development of this system over the last eight years, including, we believe, numerous technology advantages, as we have prepared our M-BAND system for this important program for our homeland defense."