Baltimore, MD – October 1, 2013 – Fyodor, a Baltimore-based biotechnology company, announced today that the US National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the company a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 2 grant. The $729,000 funding will help accelerate Fyodor’s effort to develop and validate a noninvasive multi-disease urine-based diagnostic test for Acute Febrile Illness (AFI), enabling the differential clinical diagnosis of leading global health diseases like malaria, typhoid, dengue, and leptospirosis from a single urine specimen in patients with fever.
Acute febrile illness, characterized by rapid onset of fever, is often assumed to be malaria but is frequently triggered by a wide variety of pathogens which can cause severe and deadly disease, but are curable if detected early and treated immediately. More than 300 million cases of reported AFI are due to malaria, typhoid, leptospirosis and dengue infections. However, the absence of multi-disease differential diagnostic tests, particularly in low resource settings, often leads to incorrect, incomplete and/or delayed treatment, prolonged illness, overuse of unnecessary medications and increased morbidity and mortality.
“The challenge faced by healthcare providers in resource-constrained settings with high burdens of global health diseases is how to manage acute fever without the benefit of rapid differential diagnostic tests,” said Eddy Agbo, DVM, PhD, Chairman & CEO of Fyodor. “Since we started in 2008, our goal has been to innovate non-invasive rapid diagnostic tests suitable for use in point-of-care settings where the need is greatest. We appreciate the confidence the NSF has placed in our strategy to accelerate our effort in this regard, to create enduring value for global health.”
This Phase 2 grant will fund the development of a simple urine dipstick test that can rapidly evaluate groups of symptomatically related febrile diseases, and which is suitable for use in point-of-care settings, particularly in rural communities where these diseases are most prevalent. This multi-disease test for AFI will broaden the utility of Fyodor’s Urine Malaria Test, currently undergoing clinical field testing, and enable healthcare workers to holistically address cases of non-malaria fever at point-of-care for the first time, markedly impacting the way acute fever is diagnosed and treated.
About Fyodor Biotechnologies, Inc
Fyodor is a clinical-stage company that develops and commercializes novel medical diagnostics that address unmet needs in global health in emerging markets. We identify novel biotechnologies that have compelling relevance to global health diseases and translate them into tangible simple-to-use products.
Contact
Anne M. Derrick
Vice President, Business Development & Operations
Email: anne.derrick@fyodorbio.com | Ph: 1-443-552-0437 | www.fyodorbio.com
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