SBRI Healthcare has awarded £1 million to 11 innovations tackling antimicrobial resistance, as part of its “Competition 25: AMR” phase 1 development funding competition.
As part of the competition, projects will run for “up to six months” with the aim of demonstrating technical and commercial feasibility for innovative ideas including novel POC testing, AI-enabled testing, and the use of UV-C LED technology for disinfection.
Selected projects will also be sponsored to undergo the NICE Metatool, “to help optimise their approach to addressing gaps in development plans and evidence generation, and to identify the potential next steps to bring their product to market”.
Imperial College London has been awarded £100,000 to develop its MagMove Assisted RNA Purification and Lateral flow Evaluation (MARPLE) project, a point-of-care diagnostic platform utilising mRNA biomarkers to “rapidly differentiate bacterial from viral infections in under 10 minutes”.
Mackwell Health Limited has received £99,738 to help evidence the potential for its UV-C high-level disinfection equipment using LEDs, including in creating CO2e savings; while Seroxo Limited’s SAMuRAI-LIT finger-prick POC blood test which assesses “real-time neutrophil function through a patented 10-minute assay” has been awarded £99,358 to improve its reader and reagents.
Vitec Microgenix Limited’s technology, designed to “continuously” kill microbes on surfaces and in the air, has also been awarded £53,409 to support the development of a clinical trial to demonstrate efficacy.
Other innovations awarded a share of funding include a portable device capable of identifying bacterial infection from a drop of blood in less than 20 minutes; a rapid POC “antibiotic susceptibility” test for UTIs; and an automated system to extract bacteria from positive blood cultures for “ultra-rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing” in 3 hours.
Verena Stocker, director of innovation, research, life sciences and strategy for NHS England, highlighted how the 11 projects were selected for funding based on their potential to “make a big difference” in tackling antimicrobial resistance, adding: “By supporting the most promising innovations, the NHS will continue to evolve, helping to meet more patients’ needs and encouraging more innovators to come forward with innovative ideas that benefit all.”
Date: 17 february