Bioinformatics firm Noscendo, Duisburg, Germany, has received CE certification for Disqver, a diagnostic platform that uses next-generation sequencing of cell-free DNA to detect more than 1,500 bacteria, DNA viruses, fungi, and parasites in a patient’s bloodstream. Dissqver’s proprietary algorithms then assess the relevance of the corresponding pathogen.
The certification marks a developmental milestone for the technology, which received seed funding in October 2018. Pilot testing in eight maximum-care hospitals throughout Germany confirmed that Noscendo’s platform successfully identified primary pathogens across multiple pathogen classes, the company says.
“Disqver testing has identified pathogens relevant for treatment, especially in the case of pathogens that are difficult to cultivate and in the case of patients with prior antibiotic treatment,” says Axel Prause, MD, senior physician for anesthesiology, intensive care, emergency care, and pain treatment at Asklepios Hospital. As a result, the hospital expects better patient management and “an even more target-oriented antibiotic treatment,” he says.
In addition to intensive care patients with existing bloodstream infections such as endocarditis and sepsis, Disqver was applied to patient cohorts in adult and pediatric oncology, hematooncology, and organ transplantation.
“We are very pleased to have reached important milestones in a very short time frame since the inception of the company and completion of the first financing round,” says Philip Stevens, MD, managing director of Noscendo. “Moreover, we will continue to work at full speed on the development of our diagnostic platform with regard to automated pathogen detection of bloodstream-associated infections in order to define a new gold standard in intensive care.”
For more information, visit Noscendo.
