Rapid tests take aim at antibiotic-resistant ‘superbugs’

A 10-year challenge to find ways to combat the growing scourge of antibiotic resistant “superbugs” has yielded a new generation of diagnostic tests that offer rapid identification of infections.

The £8mn Longitude Prize was awarded on Wednesday to Sysmex Astrego, a Swedish company whose method cuts the analysis time for urinary tract infection patient samples from two or three days to less than an hour.

The prize is a response to the increasing threat posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR), or the evolution of pathogens to beat existing essential drugs. Countries are due to hold talks on tackling AMR on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly in September.

“Without antibiotics, modern medicine as we know it is in real danger of collapse,” said Dame Sally Davies, UK Special Envoy on AMR and a Longitude committee member. “The prize winner will help healthcare workers around the world make the best decisions for their patients with confidence that they are prescribing the right drug, first time.”

AMR, which has been stoked by the careless use and disposal of existing antibiotics, contributed to almost 5mn deaths worldwide in 2019, according to a 2022 study. Climate change is forecast to intensify its development, as higher temperatures speed bacterial growth and disasters such as flooding spread antibiotic-resistant pathogens.

Sysmex Astrego has focused initially on urinary tract infections because they are so common, afflicting an estimated 50-60 per cent of women during their lifetimes. It is thought that up to half the bacteria that cause the conditions are resistant to one or more antibiotics.

Deploying technology from Sweden’s Uppsala university, Sysmex uses a smartphone-sized cartridge to analyse tiny samples of less than half a millilitre. Tests suggest it can detect a bacterial infection in 15 minutes and identify the right antibiotic to treat it in 45. Like other emerging technologies up for the Longitude AMR prize, it has potential to be developed to detect other kinds of infection.

Sysmex’s system is on the market in Europe and being considered by UK regulators for adoption in the country’s National Health Service.

Mikael Olsson, Sysmex’s co-founder and chief executive, said the company’s goal was “to be able to roll this technology to as many parts of the world as possible”. It costs about €4,750 for the analysis equipment and €29 per cartridge test, but Sysmex hopes more sales of the product will enable it to scale up manufacturing and reduce prices.

“[The set-up] is very user friendly,” Olsson said. “It’s just plug and play and quite small compared to a lot of the lab systems — so it should be applicable in quite a lot of different settings.”

Another Longitude Prize contender, made by British company Llusern Scientific, aims to ease the problem of antibiotics being prescribed even when no infection is present. It can rapidly confirm the presence of the six most common pathogens that cause 85 per cent of urinary tract infections.

Emma Hayhurst, Llusern’s co-founder and chief executive, said the company had been in talks about licensing production of the technology to Indian manufacturers. She said AMR was “pretty terrifying” but welcomed the renewed focus on it after the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It’s obviously on people’s agenda but there are still some chronic misunderstandings about what it is and what the impact will be on us,” she said. “But I do think governments are beginning to take it seriously.”

The Longitude Prize is funded by Innovate UK, a government agency, and Nesta, a British foundation that works in areas such as health, climate and education. India’s Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council and pharmaceutical companies including UK-based GSK and Merck & Co of the US provided funding for entrants’ international development efforts.