TIRAT CARMEL, Israel, April 19, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- MeMed Ltd. announced today that it has been awarded a contract by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), a branch of the US Department of Defense (DoD). The contract, totaling up to $9.2M, will fund the completion of MeMed’s pioneering point of care platform for distinguishing bacterial from viral infections.
“We are excited by this vote of confidence. DTRA’s recognition of our work further positions MeMed as a world leader in immune-based diagnostics of infectious diseases,” said Eran Eden, PhD, MeMed’s CEO. “This joint effort, and our growing collaboration with other international stakeholders from industry and government, will facilitate the global availability of our tests aimed at combating antimicrobial resistance.”
In the past eight years, company co-founders Kfir Oved, MD/PhD and Eran Eden, PhD collaborated with leading researchers and clinicians from around the globe to study the changes that take place in the human immune system when it is fighting infections, in order to develop a human immune signature that accurately recognizes the difference between bacterial and viral infections. ImmunoXpert, the first generation of this novel test, is already in use and has been validated in thousands of patients*. The second generation of the test involved development of a new point of care platform that is easy to use and takes only 15 minutes.
“This collaboration will allow us to expedite completion of our point of care platform program,” said Kfir Oved, MD/PhD, MeMed’s CTO. “In addition to allowing measurements of our bacterial versus viral test within minutes, the new platform also opens the way to a variety of rapid multiplex-protein measurements at the point of care with lab-quality precision, which has broad applications.”
“The project will also evaluate and expand our test menu to detect early infections, even at the pre-symptomatic stage of a disease currently a major challenge in our ability to control infections and epidemics,” said Tanya Gottlieb, PhD, MeMed’s VP Scientific Affairs.
*Oved et al. Plos One, 2015; Eden et al. Journal of Infection, 2016; van Houten et el. Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2016.
About the Defense Threat Reduction Agency
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) was founded in 1998 to integrate and focus the capabilities of the Department of Defense (DoD) that address the threat by weapons of mass destruction (WMD). DTRA’s mission is to safeguard the United States and its allies from global weapons of mass destruction and improvised threats by integrating, synchronizing and by providing expertise, technologies and capabilities. For more information on DTRA, visit www.dtra.mil.
About MeMed
MeMed is dedicated to improving patient lives through research, development and commercialization of pioneering tests that monitor the body’s immune state. Its tests decode the immune system’s distinct responses to different health and disease states. The company focuses on providing rapid, accurate and actionable diagnostic solutions for acute infectious diseases and inflammatory disorders in the hospital and community. Its first-generation test, ImmunoXpert, has demonstrated the ability to accurately detect whether a patient has a bacterial or viral infection, with the aim of empowering physicians to make better informed antibiotic treatment decisions. ImmunoXpert is cleared for clinical use in the European Union, Switzerland and Israel. It is currently in pilot distribution in these territories with a broader commercial roll-out underway. MeMed’s second-generation test for rapid (within minutes) point-of-care testing is under development. For additional information, please visit http://www.me-med.com.
Media and Business Development Contact:
Asi Cohen-Dotan, PhD
Phone: +972-4-8500302
asi.cohen@me-med.com
SOURCE MeMed
