About LEAD Horizon

Who is LEAD Horizon?

We are an Austrian company that was founded at the beginning of 2020 by Assoc.- Prof. Dr. med. Christoph Steininger and Michael Putz. Together with business partners we developed a turnkey solution for drive-in and walk-through stations for mass testing of the coronavirus. The thought-provoking impulse came from the fact that with an average of 2,300 tests performed per day it would take 10 years to test the population of Austria once. This is intended to counteract the spread of the coronavirus and set an example for Austria and the world.

Our strengths: 

• We work in close cooperation with our all-encompassing partner network of industrial companies and partners in science.
• We offer solutions for small to large organizations.
• We protect companies from business failure.
• It is possible to extend the tests to people outside of organisations.
• We enable testing of the entire population, as we can provide a large number of test capacities in a short time.
• We prepare Austria for a second wave with our solutions.
• With around 200 experienced laboratory staff, we can perform up to 57,000 tests daily.
• We train our test personnel especially for the mobile test stations.
• A network of partner laboratories makes it possible to quickly evaluate a large number of tests.
• With a specially developed software solution via app we deliver the test results within 1 working day in a simple and understandable way.
• We act independently of international procurement channels and bottlenecks.
• We obtain our resources exclusively from Austrian and German companies

About Assoc.- Prof. Dr. med. Christoph Steininger: 

Christoph Steininger is a virologist, infectiologist and internist at the Medical University of Vienna. After studying human medicine in Innsbruck, he worked at the Medical University of Vienna, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (Germany), Cayetano Heredia University Lima (Peru), and University of California, San Diego (USA). Prof. Steininger is head of the research group "Viral Infections" and the Institute for Microbiome Research of the Karl-Landsteiner Society.

"Safety, quality, reliability - the drive-in stations close decisive gaps in sample collection and logistics for corona detection".

Publications: 

1. Bilgilier, C. et al., 2017. Prospective, multicenter clinical study on inter- and intra-patient genetic variability for antimicrobial resistance of Helicobacter pylori. Clinical Microbiology and Infection. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cmi.2017.06.025.
2. Thannesberger, J. et al., 2017. Viruses comprise an extensive pool of mobile genetic elements in eukaryote cell cultures and human clinical samples. The FASEB Journal, 31(5), pp.1987-2000. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1096/fj.201601168r.
3. Steininger, C., 2012. Cytomegalovirus vaccine: light on the horizon. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 12(4), pp.257-259. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(11)70367-X.
4. Steininger, C. et al., 2012. Recombinant antibodies encoded by IGHV1-69 react with pUL32, a phosphoprotein of cytomegalovirus and B-cell superantigen. Blood, 119(10), pp.2293-2301. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1182/blood-2011-08-374058.
5. Kump, P. et al., 2014. Empfehlungen zur Anwendung der fakalen Mikrobiotatransplantation �Stuhltransplantation�: Konsensus der Osterreichischen Gesellschaft für Gastroenterologie und Hepatologie (OGGH) in Zusammenarbeit mit der Osterreichischen Gesellschaft für Infektiologie und Tropenmedizin (OEGIT). Zeitschrift für Gastroenterologie, 52(12), pp.1485-1492. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1055/s-0034-1385562.