MeMed announces positive results from bacterial/viral infection test

MeMed, a specialist in advanced host-response technologies, has announced positive results from AutoPilot, a prospective, multicentre study, that evaluated performance of MeMed’s test in distinguishing between bacterial and viral infections. 

The study, funded by the EU commission, has been published in Clinical Microbiology and Infection. The diagnostic performance of the host-response protein signature underlying MeMed’s technology was validated in a broad paediatric cohort (n=1,008; >90 days to 18 years). The test’s potential to improve antibiotic stewardship was demonstrated in children with fever without source and respiratory tract infections at emergency departments and wards in Italy and Germany.

Dr. Eran Eden, MeMed’s co-founder and CEO said: “Data drives everything we do at MeMed. This is the largest prospective study in paediatrics for our technology to date, and part of a growing evidence base generated by multiple clinical groups over the past decade, establishing the high performance and utility of our technology. We are grateful to the European Commission for funding the study, and to our clinical collaborators who lead it.”

Prof. Dr. med. Tobias Tenenbaum, head of the clinic for child and adolescent Medicine, Sana Klinikum Lichtenberg and president of the German Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (DGPI), added: “I often treat children whose fever has no obvious source, and for whom there is diagnostic uncertainty. While we would like to reduce unwarranted use of antibiotics, we do not want to leave a bacterial infection untreated. This study shows that physicians now have a new option to potentially improve patient outcomes. The biomarker signature has potential to reduce overtreatment of children with antibiotics by more than three-fold without impacting underuse. These data show that host response tests have an important role to play in treatment guidance in children with acute infection.”

Bacterial and viral infections are often clinically indistinguishable, leading to the prescription of antibiotics to children with viral infections, for which they are ineffective. Antibiotic misuse drives the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), one of the biggest healthcare challenges of our time.