INSIGHTS / Blog

GenomeKey has been awarded a major grant from the Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X) to build a functioning, automated prototype of its desktop diagnostic device.

The Bristol-based company joined SETsquared Bristol’s incubation programme in 2020 with a vision to build an in vitro diagnostic device that would completely transform the way that sepsis and other bacterial infections is diagnosed and treated.

GenomeKey’s next-generation device will be able to detect and identify bacteria directly from patient blood, delivering a full antimicrobial resistance (AMR) profile in just hours.

Dr Michael Roberts, GenomeKey CEO, said: “We have a vision of the world where nobody dies from a treatable infection. Right now, the gold standard test takes too long and has a high false-negative rate. We’re giving clinicians the information they need, much faster, so they can deliver rapid diagnostics testing and precision medicine for a more targeted treatment.

“We live in an exciting time for medical science, where the twin revolutions in next-generation sequencing and machine learning now make it possible for us to identify and profile bacteria directly from patient blood, accurately and cheaply. We’re on a mission to save lives, improve outcomes and fight the global threat of antimicrobial resistance.”

Since its founding in 2016, CARB-X has provided more than US$450M to more than 100 projects to address bacterial infections. These projects include vaccines, rapid diagnostics, antibiotics, and other non-traditional therapeutics and preventatives. The CARB-X portfolio is the world’s most scientifically diverse antibacterial R&D portfolio.

Erin Duffy, Chief of R&D at CARB-X, said: “It is imperative to direct treatment quickly with the right antibiotic treatment, and GenomeKey’s technology has the potential to help practitioners direct the appropriate treatment by delivering a phenotypic antibiotic sensitivity prediction based on rapid whole genome sequencing direct from blood.”

Learn more about GenomeKey at genomekey.com