Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major threat to global public health (WHO), currently responsible for more than 1.27 million global deaths each year, and could result in 10 million deaths annually by 2050, more than cancer and diabetes combined. AMR risks returning medicine to a pre-antibiotic age, putting routine surgeries at risk. Of the many life-threatening drug-resistant infections, urinary tract infections (UTIs) are a major cause of morbidity and mortality. 1 in 4 sepsis cases can be traced back to an earlier, poorly-treated UTI and there is a pressing need for a rapid diagnostic test to identify the optimum antibiotic treatment for a patient’s infection as quickly as possible. 

Can you picture a world where antibiotics don't work? Over time, the treatments we use are becoming less effective. Antimicrobial resistance is a growing threat due to high use of broad spectrum, non-targeted antibiotics and is compounded by general antibiotic overuse. Broad spectrum antibiotics can't distinguish between healthy infection-causing bugs apart, so they kill them all. Sometimes only resistant strains are left behind allowing them to become even stronger.  

Microplate Dx are tackling AMR with a patented diagnostic test to rapidly pinpoint the correct antibiotic for infection treatment in under an hour. The rapid, cost-effective test will vastly reduce the use of empirical or 'best-guess' prescribing practices as per the current paradigm, and result in enhanced antibiotic stewardship by ensuring the right drug is quickly prescribed to the patient for a particular condition, ultimately reducing resistance rates and saving lives.

Microplate Dx's first product application area focusses on urinary tract infections (UTIs), although the platform potential of the Rplate technology means that in the future, test cartridges will be developed to treat other key bacterial and fungal infections, including sepsis. 

For more information on the effects of AMR, please check out this recent BBC News Report reporting on a recent study from The Lancet: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60058120