Thermo Fisher launches CEDIA Mitragynine (Kratom) Assay

Thermo Fisher Scientific has announced its newest drugs of abuse test that includes supporting calibrators and controls, the CEDIA Mitragynine (Kratom) Assay, is now available for criminal justice and forensic Kratom Alkaloid Mitragynine Screening, and can be run on widely used clinical chemistry analysers. Kratom is not classified as a controlled substance, but it is listed by the US Drug Enforcement Agency as a “drug of concern,” due to the damage it can do to one’s health and the fatalities that have been recorded recently. Mitragynine is the active alkaloid in Kratom, and users begin to experience opioid-like physiological and psychological effects at moderate to high doses.
Fernando Beils, vice president and general manager of Clinical Diagnostics for Thermo Fisher, said: “The CEDIA Mitragynine Assay, with its excellent correlation with LC-MS/MS and high precision, is an easier to use alternative and a more cost-effective screening tool for the detection of mitragynine in urine samples. Prior to this assay, other screening methods for mitragynine were either time-consuming or expensive, requiring highly-trained staff, or manual with subjective interpretation of results.”