NEW YORK – T2 Biosystems said on Thursday that it has received an additional $3.7 million from the US Department of Health and Human Services' Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority through the exercise of a contract option.
The funding will be used to advance US clinical trials for the T2Resistance Panel and the T2Biothreat Panel and to file submissions to the US Food and Drug Administration for regulatory clearance. Both tests are direct from blood and designed to run on the T2Dx instrument. The T2Resistance panel simultaneously detects 13 antibiotic resistance genes from Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial pathogens. The T2Biothreat Panel detects six biothreat pathogens: Bacillus anthracis, Francisella tularensis, Burkholderia mallei, Burkholderia pseudomallei, Yersinia pestis, and Rickettsia prowazekii.
The total potential funding from the multiple-year cost-sharing contract with BARDA, if all contract options are exercised, is $62.0 million, which reflects "a reduction in the scope of work under contract option 3," T2 said in a statement. The original contract, signed in 2019, was for up to $69 million, and BARDA exercised its first option for $10.5 million in 2020 and its second option of $6.4 million last year. Earlier this year, the Lexington, Massachusetts-based company announced the exercise of another $4.4 million contract option.
"These new products will expand the test menu on our T2Dx Instrument and have the potential to reduce the threat of antimicrobial resistance and protect the nation from biothreat pathogens," T2 Chairman and CEO John Sperzel said in a statement.