The World Health Organization lists AMR as one of the top ten worldwide public health hazards to humanity.
In order to combat the worldwide danger of antimicrobial resistance, Sysmex Corporation’s subsidiary Sysmex Astrego AB has been granted the UK’s Longitude Prize on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) for developing the PA-100 AST System, a quick antimicrobial susceptibility testing tool.
With an award of £8 million, the technology has the potential to significantly alter the use of antibiotics by quickly determining the appropriate course of therapy for urinary tract infections (UTIs) in 45 minutes.
AMR, which is attributed to the five million bacterial infection-related fatalities that occur each year, is caused by bacteria, fungi, and parasites that evolve and adapt to antibiotics over time. It is one of the top ten global public health challenges that humanity faces, according to the World Health Organization.
The Longitude Prize was first launched in 2014 by Challenge Works with the goal of providing financial support for the development of an inexpensive, fast, accurate, and user-friendly test for bacterial infections. This will aid medical professionals globally in providing the appropriate antibiotics at the appropriate time.
The PA-100 AST System, which uses technology from Uppsala University in Sweden, requires 400 microliters of urine to be deposited on a cartridge and then placed into an analyser unit. This allows the system to determine the antibiotic that should be used to treat bacterial infections in less than an hour and to detect infections within 15 minutes.
Typically, doctors would submit a urine sample to a laboratory, which would then take two or three days to process and return results.
The award will assist the business in stepping up its efforts to broaden the PA-100 AST System’s application scope and worldwide market reach. The system aims to transform traditional clinical workflows for infectious diseases.
The UK’s special envoy on antimicrobial resistance, Dame Sally Davies, who is on the committee for the Longitude Prize, stated: “We can no longer afford to prescribe antibiotics ‘just in case.'”
“The winner of the Longitude Prize lays the foundation for a radical shift in the way we handle these priceless medications, enabling medical professionals to make the best choices for their patients with the help of timely and pertinent diagnostic testing.”
