Accelr8 Technology Corporation announced that clinical research collaborators at the Denver Health Medical Center received notification of acceptance for presentation of interim research results at the annual meeting of the American Thoracic Society. The meeting will be held in May. The presentation will describe “early look” results from a clinical pilot study that uses Accelr8’s BACcel™ rapid diagnostic system. The research uses specimens from ICU patients under an Institutional Review Board approved protocol with informed patient consent. Specific aims include comparison of diagnostic speed and accuracy against results from standard laboratory culturing.
The BACcel™ system analyzes live microbial cells extracted directly from a patient specimen and eliminates the need for days of laboratory cultures. In previous research, the system demonstrated the ability to report quantitative identification within two hours after obtaining a specimen, and major drug resistance expression types within a total of six hours. Standard culturing methods require 2-3 days, which is too late to improve outcomes for critically ill patients who acquire drug-resistant infections with endemic hospital pathogens.
The company also disclosed that it has begun to integrate its automated microscopy and fluidic robotics into a single instrument. The company established technical milestones in the second calendar quarter for specialty suppliers to demonstrate subsystems and integration feasibility. Based on supplier input, management believes that “alpha” systems will become available to international key opinion leaders in about one year.
According to David Howson, Accelr8’s president, “these two events reflect the substantial progress we’ve made in field studies and in making the transition to a fully automated hospital product. The May presentation offers the first exposure to the Pulmonary Medicine community for the BACcel™ system. The study itself is designed to answer important questions that researchers have not previously been able to address because there has been no method to quickly analyze emergent infections. Our system is now closing that critical gap,” Howson concluded.