— Funds will be used to accelerate development of a point-of-care test (POCT) that distinguishes bacterial or viral infection and will help improve antimicrobial stewardship —
Tirat Carmel, Israel – July XX, 2015 - MeMed Ltd. announced today notification of a €3 million award for the company’s Respiratory-ImmunoDx project from the European Commission. The three-year award was granted through Horizon 2020’s Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) instrument, which targets high potential SMEs with groundbreaking products that have the potential to profoundly impact the EU economy and global healthcare. MeMed’s proposal received top place out of 90 competitive applicants.
“We are excited by this unique vote of confidence from the European Commission,” said Eran Eden PhD, CEO of MeMed. “This funding will accelerate our development efforts and enable us to help a wider range of patients sooner.”
The award will be used to support development of MeMed’s second-generation product that allows rapid measurements of a patient’s immune response to infection at the point-of-care, as well as to fund a multi-center prospective clinical study focused on using the technology to help accurately diagnose patients with lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs). The clinical study will enroll over 1000 patients and be conducted in collaboration with leading research centers at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust (UK), Hannover Medical School (Germany), and Rambam Health Care Campus (Israel).
LRTIs are a leading cause of sickness and mortality in both children and adults worldwide. Thirty million people in Europe contract an LRTI annually resulting in more than 1 million hospitalizations and 230,000 deaths. Total direct and indirect costs related to LRTIs in Europe are estimated to be €46 billion annually. “LRTIs, primarily pneumonia and bronchitis, are a major leading cause of death and ill-health worldwide. This innovative new diagnostic test aims to provide clinicians with simple, accurate, and actionable information, at the place and time when it is most needed, to guide appropriate therapy and improve management of patients” said John Hurst, MD, Reader in Respiratory Medicine at University College London.
The monetary award from the European Commission builds on momentum created in recent months by MeMed for its disruptive technology platform, which leverages the fact that bacteria and viruses trigger different pathway responses in the immune system. By conducting extensive screening of immune system proteins in thousands of patients with acute infections, MeMed’s researchers have identified and validated unique protein signatures that distinguish bacterial versus viral infection.
“We have discovered that a few proteins show distinctly different expression patterns in bacterial and viral infected patients,” explained Kfir Oved, PhD, MeMed CTO. “Our team developed an assay and computational algorithm that integrates protein measurements to help diagnose the cause of the infection with high accuracy.”
In March the company published results of a large multi-center prospective clinical study validating the performance of the host-immune signature in determining if a patient has an acute bacterial or viral infection. This host-signature is the basis for MeMed’s hospital-based diagnostic kit called ImmunoXpert™ – which has been approved for use in Europe and Israel. On Wednesday, July 29, MeMed will present these findings, which earned a Distinguished Abstract Award from the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry, at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.
About MeMed
MeMed is dedicated to improving patient lives through research, development and commercialization of pioneering products that decode the immune system’s distinct responses to different health and disease states. The company focuses on providing rapid, accurate and actionable diagnostic solutions for acute infectious diseases and inflammatory disorders in the hospital and community. The company’s most advanced product, ImmunoXpertTM, accurately and rapidly detects if a patient has a bacterial or viral infection, with the aim of empowering physicians to make better informed antibiotic treatment decisions. ImmunoXpertTM is CE marked and approved for clinical use in the EU, Switzerland and Israel, with pilot distribution efforts underway. For additional information, please visit www.me-med.com.
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