Point of Care diagnostics testing is growing rapidly driven by global demands in personal medicine and more personal control of treatment. The overuse of antibiotics is a major challenge to public health resulting in anti-microbial resistance (AMR) and increased patient deaths due to infections that are drug resistant. Millions of antibiotic prescriptions are written annually in primary care settings worldwide and it is estimated more than 50% of these prescriptions are unnecessary due to viral infection. AMR has seen a global surge and increases in death due to infections caused by sepsis and acute kidney failure are linked to the over use of antibiotics. In the EU, for example it is estimated that antibiotic resistance is responsible for >2M extra hospital stays and >25,000 deaths annually which results in an annual economic cost in excess of £1.5 Billion
Using its patented electrochemistry technology, AgPlus can provide quantitative diagnosis at the Point of Care within ten minutes, allowing early identification of bacterial versus viral infection. Early accurate treatment and the consequent potential to reduce the incidence of infection will reduce the healthcare burden and costs to the NHS system caused by the effects of AMR.
This project will involve the optimisation and validation of a high sensitivity Point of Care platform based on a quantitative assay for HNL, a biomarker for the differentiation of bacterial versus viral infection. HNL has shown superior clinical results to other more commonly used biomarkers in this application.