Becton Dickinson to Offer Accelerate Diagnostics AST Systems Under Collaboration

Original from: 360DX

Becton Dickinson announced on Monday that it has inked a deal with Accelerate Diagnostics to sell that firm's Accelerate Pheno system and the Accelerate Arc module for antimicrobial susceptibility testing.

Under the commercial collaboration agreement, BD will sell the system and module, along with associated test kits, in territories where they have regulatory approval or registration. The Accelerate Pheno system and the PhenoTest BC kit for rapid identification and phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility results received clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration in 2017. A new configuration of the kit received CE marking last year. 

The Accelerate Arc module, as well as the related BC kit, was registered with the FDA in May. It also has CE marking and UK Conformity Assessed marking for positive blood cultures. The module and BC kit apply inline centrifugation and automated sample prep techniques to provide a suspension of cleaned microbial cells for direct transfer to a MALDI mass spec spotting plate, eliminating the need to batch multiple specimen tests. 

"Rapid testing can quickly determine if an antibiotic should be used for treatment, and if so, which one," Brooke Story, president of integrated diagnostic solutions for BD, said in a statement. "Through our collaboration with Accelerate Diagnostics, we can help clinicians more quickly, efficiently, and effectively treat patients, which may lead to a reduction in healthcare costs and help slow the spread of antimicrobial resistance."

"With BD's large installed customer base of clinical microbiology systems, this collaboration exponentially increases our global commercial reach and provides numerous ways to increase our market penetration with Pheno and Arc to reach more clinicians and patients," said Jack Phillips, president and CEO of Accelerate Diagnostics.

In a separate announcement, Accelerate Diagnostics reported its second quarter financial results. The firm saw net sales of $3.9 million, up 39 percent from $2.8 million in the second quarter of 2021. Its net loss was $17.8 million, or $.23 per share, compared to $21.7 million, or $.36 per share, in Q2 2021. The firm exited the quarter with $4.6 million in cash and cash equivalents, and $32.2 million in investments.

During the quarter, Accelerate added eight contracted instruments and brought three instruments live in the US, ending the period with 316 clinically live and revenue-generating instruments and another 78 contracted instruments in the process of being implemented.

Source: Becton Dickinson to Offer Accelerate Diagnostics AST Systems Under Collaboration