GAITHERSBURG, Md., March 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OpGen, Inc. (NASDAQ:OPGN) announced today that it is collaborating with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston on a verification study for OpGen’s Acuitas® AMR Gene Panel u5.47 Assay and Acuitas Lighthouse® Knowledgebase. The principal investigator at BIDMC is Stefan Riedel, M.D., Ph.D., D(ABMM), FCAP, Associate Medical Director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratories at BIDMC and Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. The study plan includes testing remnant urine specimens from patients at increased risk for complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI). This prospective verification study is among the first to evaluate potential diagnostic and antibiotic decision-making improvements that could be possible using rapid molecular testing and bioinformatics.
Effective, targeted antimicrobial treatment is of critical importance in patients with cUTI and other serious infections as the emergence and spread of antimicrobial-resistant organisms increase. There are an estimated 400,000 to 800,000 patients each year in the U.S. with cUTI, and approximately half are at risk for multidrug-resistant infections. Complicated UTI continues to be a major cause of hospital admission, morbidity, mortality and excess health care costs as a growing number of infections are healthcare-associated in origin.
The Acuitas AMR Gene Panel u5.47 is a new molecular test developed by OpGen and is currently available for research use only. The test is designed to detect five key pathogens semi-quantitatively and 47 antibiotic-resistance genes in under three hours.
“We are excited to have Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as a collaborator in this important study to evaluate potential improvements in cUTI management. Our Acuitas AMR Gene Panel u5.47 and Acuitas Lighthouse Knowledgebase are designed to provide clinically actionable information in under three hours, compared with legacy microbiology methods that take up to several days. This collaboration is an important step in verifying our technology’s performance in clinical research laboratory settings,” said Evan Jones, Chairman and CEO of OpGen.
About OpGen
OpGen, Inc. is harnessing the power of informatics and genomic analysis to provide complete solutions for patient, hospital and network-wide infection treatment and prevention. Learn more at www.opgen.com and follow OpGen on Twitter and LinkedIn.
