We’ve had a good run for the last seven
decades or so, being able to defeat almost all microbial infections with a
growing variety of powerful antibiotics, but the proliferation of antibiotics
has also led to underdosing and careless prescription, directly driving the
evolution of antibiotic-resistant microbes. In fact, most hospitals routinely
overuse antibiotics according to recent analysis by leading healthcare providers
alliance, Premier (NASDAQ:PINC), in which they reviewed data from their
sizeable membership and found that the inappropriate and redundant use of
combinations of the most common therapies was prevalent in almost 80% of all
facilities, also amounting to $13 million a year in excess spending.
Many in the medical community are
becoming increasingly alarmed by the looming threat that the evolution of
multidrug resistant and now even totally drug resistant microorganisms pose.
The billions per year in excess healthcare costs alone resulting from the rise
of drug resistant/immune microorganisms is a serious problem, but the potential
impacts to clinical patient outcomes and loss of human life, could be
systemically staggering. This is especially true in highly specialized and
developed economies, whose very organizational strengths make them particularly
vulnerable to the kind of sporadic chaos that the rise of drug resistant/immune
bacteria could create.
We are facing a possible future where
such microbes, which have adapted through genetic mutation to underdosed or
overused antibiotics across huge numbers of subjects, may shatter the
antibiotics paradigm itself, making most, if not all of the available therapies
in existence today completely useless. Compounding this problem is the growing
incident rate of HAIs (hospital-acquired infections), which are conservatively
estimated as affecting 5% of all patients according to the CDC’s own numbers,
and which are associated with over 23k deaths per year in the U.S. alone, as
well as 100k plus deaths per year worldwide.
One of the most troubling bugs in the
mix is MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), because it is
responsible for numerous infections that are difficult to treat and because it
is highly resistant to the standard beta-lactam class antibiotics, including
typically prescribed penicillins (even oxacillin), as well as the cephalosporin
group. MRSA is of particular concern in hospitals or extended care facilities
where patients who have open wounds or invasive devices, as well as patients
with compromised immune systems, are at a statistically much higher risk of
infection. Estimated as being responsible for around 11k deaths and 80k
invasive infections in the U.S. alone each year, costing over $2.5 billion in
excess healthcare costs, MRSA has been clearly identified by the CDC (alongside
other drug resistant bacteria), as being a prime target for advanced detection
technologies, which may be one of the only truly effective ways to curb its
spread. Moreover, the ability to accurately and quickly detect sources of
contamination may eventually lead to improved use of antibiotics in general,
greatly reducing their application where it is unnecessary and helping to get
them applied more rapidly when they are needed, ultimately helping a great deal
when it comes to stemming the tide of drug resistant bacteria, directly at the
source of its adaptation.
While newer technologies in use today,
like the GeneXpert® system from molecular diagnostics company Cepheid (NASDAQ:
CPHD), have taken MRSA detection times down from a few days to only a few hours
(or even as low as 66 minutes), allowing for the reduction of costly,
presumptive patient ICU isolation, as well as nursing labor, such systems still
require swabbing and unit culturing. A similar approach by Switzerland-based
diagnostics developer Roche (OTCMKTS: RHHBY), with their cobas® MRSA/SA Test
using the cobas 4800 system, while providing highly accurate and real-time
polymerase chain reaction based detection, still requires swabbing the patient
and then running the vial through expensive hardware to do the detection.
This unfortunate reality is where
innovative detection device development company Zenosense (OTCQB: ZENO) comes
into clear and sharp focus, as they are currently co-developing a revolutionary
new series of devices capable of accurately discriminating the signature VOCs
(volatile organic compounds) associated with MRSA/SA, as well as lung cancer,
in real-time by processing the air and the patient’s exhaled breath. Working
with renowned sensor developer, Sgenia Group’s dedicated subsidiary, Zenon
Biosystem, Zenosense plans to market these devices directly to hospitals and
other healthcare settings where they can provide the kind of early detection needed
to save huge sums of money and countless patient lives.
Such electronic nose technology is
somewhat new but there have been several applications of it in recent years,
including for creating sniffing devices that can detect the chemical signature
of explosives. And despite existing devices, like the Airsense system installed
on the ISS (international space station), being bulky and prohibitively
expensive, such devices have proven to be of immense value for doing real-time
detection that does not require some kind of sampling and culturing or other
cumbersome test protocol.
The Zenosense device’s core technology,
an algal (water) based chip under license to Zenosense from Sgenia, has already
been developed and proven. Pairing this platform with a single, cheap,
off-the-shelf gas sensor and the company’s own sophisticated processing
software, allows the Zenosense device to achieve the same analytical capability
as up to 32 sensors, which would require their own supporting processors,
circuit boards, and power supplies. The result is an inexpensive and
lightweight detector that can be worn or placed in a fixed position in a
patient’s room, providing continuous, accurate scans that will take the guess
work and hassle out of MRSA detection.
A potential game changer that could help
us head off the “end of antibiotics” scenario that has the healthcare community
spooked, the Zenosense MRSA/SA detection platform also has the ability to
actively learn target VOC signatures across the spectrum, giving it powerful
abilities that could make it a virtually indispensible feature of all healthcare
facilities on earth one day.
To learn more about the company, please
visit www.zenosense.net
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