Symcel has secured €3.572 million Horizon 2020 funding to support the company’s evaluation of improved combination testing of antibiotics against extensively drug-resistant bacteria in sepsis patients.
The project runs over 28 months with a consortium of academic and clinical opinion leaders from Karolinska Institutet, Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal, Careggi University Hospital, Rigshospitalet, IHE and Symcel.
Symcel´s screening technology will be validated as a new surrogate method to correctly and rapidly determine which antibiotics really work against multi-resistant bacteria. At the core of this problem is the unique possibility to evaluate combinations of antibiotics against XDR bacteria in the calScreener for synergistic effects.
“The spread of multi-resistant bacteria is one the most severe risks globally to human health. The world is on the cusp of a post-antibiotic era where the healthcare community faces certain harmful bacteria that are resistant to all known drugs. Consequently, little can be done to treat the critically ill patients concerned. There is a large unmet need for a technology like calScreener that measures the metabolism of bacteria. The only way to really be sure an antibiotic is effective in killing bacteria. The prospective clinical validation is a great opportunity for Symcel,” said Jesper Ericsson, CEO of Symcel.
Magnus Jansson, CSO of Symcel added: “The goal is to provide a diagnostic tool with high speed, specificity, and sensitivity in a smartly designed and packaged device with the tools available to perform multiple antibiotic susceptibility testing in a hospital setting.”
