UK medtech company, Presymptom Health, has announced positive results from a clinical trial aiming to tackle antimicrobial resistance. The trial, called PRECISiON, was designed to assess the performance of Presymptom Health\u2019s technology in the management of infection and sepsis in patients presenting to emergency departments with respiratory infection.<\/p>\n
Accurate infection diagnosis, by identifying patients who don\u2019t require antibiotics, is crucial to saving lives and to tackling antimicrobial resistance, which has been labelled a global emergency<\/a> by UK government health officials. Failure to address the problem of antibiotic resistance<\/a> could result in an estimated 10 million deaths per year globally by 2050 and could cost the global economy \u00a366 trillion.<\/p>\n As part of the PRECISiON clinical trial, which was conducted between May 2021 and April 2024 at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust and eight other NHS sites, Presymptom Health assessed the performance of its InfectiClear\u00ae<\/sup> diagnostic product. Early results show the InfectiClear\u00ae diagnostic product may have >95 per cent accuracy at ruling out lower respiratory tract infection, a significant improvement over standard of care.<\/p>\n The core of the InfectiClear\u00ae technology lies in RNA-based host response analytics, which examines the body’s response to an infection rather than attempting to detect the pathogen directly \u2013 a method that sets it apart from marketed tests available in the UK today. This approach provides an early, highly sensitive signal for infection or sepsis and avoids the delays and inaccuracies often seen with traditional tests, which can lead to unnecessary or incorrect treatments. These tests are platform agnostic, and will over time be offered on multiple different NHS PCR platforms, which were widely deployed during the COVID pandemic and are now often under-utilised.<\/p>\n \u201cAntimicrobial resistance is a global crisis. If it\u2019s not addressed, it will kill more people than cancer does today by 2050.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Iain Miller, CEO, Presymptom Health<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Once ongoing validation work is complete and the product made available in the NHS, starting in 2025, this will enable clinicians to rule out infections earlier, and avoid unnecessary prescription of antibiotics in patients presenting with non-infectious inflammatory symptoms, such as fever and elevated heart rate or breathing. Such symptoms are not necessarily signs of active infection, and existing blood tests are not specific enough to diagnose infection or sepsis.<\/p>\n Further analysis of the trial results is ongoing, and full results will be announced later in 2025.<\/p>\n Dr Iain Miller, CEO of Presymptom Health, said: \u201cIdentifying the presence, or lack of, infection at the earliest possible opportunity is crucial to tackling the crisis. Current methods to detect infection are slow and inaccurate, leading to antibiotics being prescribed when they really don\u2019t need to be. In fact, 20-70 per cent of the UK\u2019s annual 35 million antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary or inappropriate, depending on the clinical setting.<\/p>\n \u201cThis clinical trial, when combined with data from other NHS trials, was crucial to further evidencing the efficacy of the technology. It has also enabled us to collect vital data around infection from the 484 patients that took part. We are now looking to raise further funding to help us get this lifesaving technology into the NHS as a UKCA-accredited product in 2025 and to deliver further clinical trials across the NHS and overseas.\u201d<\/p>\nHost response analytics: a new way to detect infection<\/h3>\n