BacterioScan today announced a NIH contract award to fund accelerated development of the Company’s technology for rapid detection of bloodstream infections.
| St. Louis, Missouri, January 3, 2018 - BacterioScan, an innovator in rapid in-vitro diagnostics (IVD), today announced a National Institute of Health (NIH) contract award to fund accelerated development of the Company’s technology for rapid detection of bloodstream infections (BSIs). Bloodstream infections are responsible for over 50% of all US hospital deaths, can cost more than $50,000 per patient to treat, or $17 billion dollars a year in the US alone. The NIH review panel noted that the BacterioScan’s project is of high significance because its potential to reduce the time to accurate detection and diagnosis. The ability to find antibiotic resistance earlier is critical for clinicians managing bloodstream infections, and can significantly reduce mortality and healthcare costs, while slowing the emergence of new drug resistance. The BacterioScan 216Dx in-vitro diagnostic (IVD) systemis a compact, affordable, and easy-to-use instrument that reliably detects infection and drug resistance directly from patient samples. BacterioScan has completed development of this system for use in rapid detection of Urinary Tract Infection (UTI). The NIH award funds the development of techniques for sample preparation to detect bloodstream infections directly from patient specimens on the 216Dx platform. Testing for bloodstream infection and sepsis can take from a few days to as long as a full week to complete. The first step in patient testing is detection of BSI, which is only found in about 5% of the blood samples that are ordered for testing. BacterioScan is focused on dramatically reducing time to detection for BSI. A second step is to identify the bacteria causing the infection, and determine what antibiotic will work to treat the infection (“AST”). BacterioScan’s technology is also able to reduce AST to less than eight hours. Successful results from this initial study will be used to support a follow-on product development program. “It is critically important to quickly find patients with BSIs, and to get them on the right antibiotics as fast as possible”, said BacterioScan’s President and CEO, Dana Marshall. Studies have shown that the mortality of BSI patients increases 7% for every hour of delay in effective antibiotic therapy. Mr. Marshall added that “clinical studies of BacterioScan’s product in over three thousand patients has already demonstrated our ability to speed time-to-detection for UTI by over 90%, while delivering higher sensitivity than the current standard of care. This NIH program will focus on adapting that superior speed and performance to the clinically urgent application of BSI detection.” #### |
