NEW YORK ─ Specific Diagnostics on Thursday announced it has entered a four-month evaluation for its Reveal antibiotic susceptibility platform with the French National Reference Centre (NRC) for Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) at Bicêtre Hospital, Paris.
Financial and other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The Mountain View, California-based company said the study will evaluate the ability of its Reveal System to detect and characterize the antimicrobial resistance of Gram-negative bacteremia samples, particularly superbugs that exhibit resistance to carbapenems.
A first evaluation will aim to validate the accuracy of Reveal with clinical samples, and a second will focus on confirmation and characterization of its sensitivity in the detection and quantitative characterization of carbapenem resistance in samples maintained by NRC CRE.
Specific Dx is developing Reveal to provide phenotypic minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) directly from a positive blood culture sample in an average of five hours. The test uses arrays of nanoporous sensors that respond to the volatile organic compounds emitted by growing microorganisms.
The firm said its system would enable high throughput and low cost as well as a broad and flexible antibiotic menu.