CARB-X awards $3 million for development of monoclonal antibody
CARB-X today announced funding for the development of an alternative treatment for infections caused by a multidrug-resistant strain of Escherichia coli.
The award of up to $3 million in non-dilutive funding from the CARB-X (the Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator) will help BB100 LLC, a subsidiary of Bravos Biosciences of Schenectady, New York, develop a monoclonal antibody (BB100) to treat infections caused by E coli ST131-025b, a virulent strain associated with complicated urinary tract, bloodstream, and prostate infections in Asia, Africa, and South America. The funding, part of which comes from the UK government's Global AMR Innovation Fund, will support Investigational New Drug-enabling studies and other pre-clinical development.
Under the agreement, BB100 LLC could receive an additional $6.2 million if certain project milestones are met.
"We are very excited and appreciative of the CARB-X award," Bravos President Christopher Rubino, PharmD, said in a CARB-X press release. "CARB-X support greatly enhances our ability to advance BB100, which holds the promise to be both life-saving and decrease our societal reliance on antibiotics prone to resistance."
Since 2016, CARB-X has awarded more than $130 million for early-phase development of new antibiotics, diagnostics, and alternative treatments that target antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Jul 31 CARB-X press release
Lexagene approved to use AR Isolate Bank to test diagnostics platform
Biotechnology company LexaGene Holdings announced yesterday that it's been approved by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration Antibiotic Resistance (AR) Isolate Bank to receive samples for testing antibiotic resistance.
The company says it will use the fully characterized pathogens in the AR Isolate Bank to improve the detection capabilities of the LX Analyzer, a rapid diagnostic platform being designed for use in human and veterinary medicine, as well as for food safety testing and water quality monitoring. The analyzer pulls genomic material from liquid samples to quickly identify common pathogens and screen for the presence of antibiotic resistance mechanisms.
"Antibiotic resistant pathogens are predicted to kill 10 million people by 2050," LexaGene CEO Jack Regan, PhD, said in a company press release. "To avoid this dreadful prediction, we need better diagnostics to improve our antibiotic stewardship and to lower the potential for contagion transmission."
The isolates in the AR Isolate Bank are gathered through the CDC's outbreak response and surveillance programs and represent samples from healthcare-associated, foodborne, and community-associated infections. They're used by microbiologists to validate new lab tests, by researchers to better understand resistant pathogens, and by drug and diagnostics manufacturers to develop and test new products.
Jul 30 Lexagene press release
Korean study evaluates rapid molecular test for carbapenemase screening
In a new study published in Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control, Korean researchers demonstrated the prevalence of carbapenemase-producing organisms (CPOs) in patients at a South Korean hospital using a rapid molecular test combined with cultures.
To determine the prevalence of rectal CPOs in high-risk patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) at a South Korean tertiary care hospital, researchers from Korea University College of Medicine screened 408 rectal swabs obtained from December 2016 through December 2017 using the Xpert Carba-R assay, a polymerase chain reaction test that detects five common carbapenemase genes (blaKPC, blaNDM, blaVIM, blaIMP-1, and blaOXA-48).
When carbapenemase genes were detected with the assay, new rectal swabs were requested and cultured, and carbapenemase genes were confirmed using conventional polymerase chain reaction. The diagnostic performance of the assay was ascertained based on the culture results.
The prevalence of CPO carriage was 7.4% (30 of 408 swabs) according to the Carba-R assay and 3.7% (15 of 408) according to culture results. IMP-1 (13, 3.2%) and KPC (10, 2.5%) were predominantly detected by the Carba-R assay, followed by NDM (4, 1.0%), VIM (0.2%), KPC with OXA-48 (0.2%), and KPC with IMP-1 (0.2%). The overall sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the Carba-R assay were 100.0% (95% confidence interval, 78.2% to 100.0%), 96.7% (94.4% to 98.2%), 53.6% (40.4% to 66.4%), and 100.0% (99.0% to 100.0%), respectively.
The authors of the study write, "The combined use of the Carba-R assay and culture was found to be a sensitive and specific screening method for CPOs. This combination is advantageous because the molecular method detects only the target gene and allows false-positive results, whereas rectal culture can identify which bacteria are carbapenem-resistant but may be less sensitive because of the abundance of other enteric bacteria."
Jul 29 Antimicrob Resist Infect Control study