The BacterOMIC system, developed by Scope Fluidics Group, has received the European CE marking certificate for in vitro diagnostic devices, allowing it to be used in the European Union market. The state-of-the-art diagnostic device, developed by a team of Polish microbiologists and engineers, has undergone clinical testing of the first diagnostic panel. The tests confirmed the functionality of the BacterOMIC system in diagnosing the drug susceptibility of bacteria causing a range of infections, including respiratory, blood, urinary tract and skin infections. As emphasized by doctors and WHO experts [1] , antibiotic resistance is one of the most serious problems of modern medicine.
During specialized testing at independent clinical centers, the system achieved more than 90% agreement in drug susceptibility assessment for 20 antibiotics, which fell into one of two categories of resistance: resistance/susceptibility. while work continues, management plans to expand the system to include more antibiotics in order to fully utilize the system’s diagnostic capabilities. BacterOMIC will soon be made available to first-time users under the Early Access program. The feedback and experience gained from the new users will help improve the system, its usability and efficiency of operation in the target operating environment.
– BacterOMIC is a system with very high market potential that has the potential to revolutionize antibiotic therapy. Today, the needs of doctors and their patients in this area are enormous. Experts estimate that the market for automated antimicrobial susceptibility testing is worth about $1 billion a year. Clinical tests have proven the effectiveness of the BacterOMIC system, which ultimately may be able to test all clinically relevant antibiotics in a single test, says Marcin Izydorzak, vice president and one of the founders of Scope Fluidics.
The CE (Conformite Europenne) marking obtained for the BacterOMIC system is a legal requirement to introduce the system to the market in the European Union, which confirms compliance with the EU standards as well as the European directives for medical devices. According to the annual action plan announced by the Scope Fluidics Management Board at the end of September 2021, in the next stages the system will be prepared for mass production and launching on the medical diagnostics market.
– BacterOMIC is an exceptional solution on a world scale, and ultimately it is intended to allow us to check up to 640 bacteria cultivation conditions in one test. This will translate into the possibility of creating a single test to cover most clinically used antibiotics. We are happy that our work on all the aspects of the system were confirmed in the clinical tests of the first BacterOMIC diagnostic panel, emphasizes Dr Seweryn Bajer-Borstyn, head of the BacterOMIC project in the Scope Fluidics Group.
The BacterOMIC system allows for the identification in a single test of the effectiveness of a range of 20 antibiotics that are used in the treatment of, among others, infections of the respiratory tract, blood, urinary tract, or skin, caused by the Enterobacterales; Pseudomonas; Acinetobacter, Staphylococcus bacteria. The system makes it possible to assess the treatment effectiveness for the following antibiotics, all in one test: amoxicillin, cefuroxime, cefazolin, tobramycin, amikacin, azithromycin, ceftazidime, ceftazidime with avibactam, ciprofloxacin, clindamycin, ceftriaxone, cefotaxime, cefepime, moxifloxacin, norfloxacin, ofloxacin, piperacillin, piperacillin with tazobactam, trimethoprim, trimethoprim with sulfamethoxazole.
The works on the system began in 2016. That is also when the general assumptions were specified, which have been further developed by the Scope Fluidics team in the next stages. The subsequent generations of the system, with improved ergonomic features and solutions that facilitate industrialization, were tested in prestigious clinical centers, including the National Medicines Institute, National Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases Research Institute and Children’s Memorial Health Institute. In 2021, the company launched a production line for the assembly of diagnostic cartridges and devices, patented the developed technology, and received the quality certificates compliant with ISO13485.
In October 2019, BacterOMIC received prestigious European Commission support through the SME Instrument Phase 2, part of the Horizon 2020 programme, for their “Intelligence for precision therapies against antimicrobial resistance: The first diagnostic panel that probes all the clinically relevant antibiotics at once” project.
More information on the problem of drug resistance can be found at:
https://www.who.int/health-topics/antimicrobial-resistance
https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/index.html
http://antybiotyki.edu.pl/edwa/zobacz-odp-stosowanie-pacjent.php
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial-resistance