NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Accelr8 said that it has signed a technology evaluation agreement with an unnamed global diagnostic company for its BACcel system.
Accelr8 said that the deal includes an option to license the system and develop diagnostic products based on the technology. The firm said that it will receive an initial payment plus additional payments based on completion of data evaluation.
The BACcel system is a rapid bacterial diagnostics system that, according to the firm, can identify bacteria within two hours and their major resistance mechanisms within six hours. The firm has been working on tests for antibiotic resistance detection.
The system was at the center of an option agreement signed with Becton Dickinson in April 2008. However, last September BD declined the option to license the system, sending Accelr8's stock down 30 percent.
According to Accelr8, the new evaluation agreement includes analysis of data being collected in pre-clinical and pilot studies that have been initiated at the Denver Health Medical Center, and at the Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. In addition, it said that it will share data and materials related to its ongoing development of tests for antibiotic resistance detection.
"Unlike other new technologies that only identify organisms, or only detect two or three resistance types, our system detects all of the organisms and resistance types that most often cause therapy to fail," Accelr8 President David Howson said in a statement. "We will now advance our tests over the next eight months to detect highly threatening new types of resistance that defeat standard laboratory tests. These tests use sophisticated analyses that are also valuable for new drug development."
In early Thursday afternoon trade on the American Stock Exchange, shares of Accelr8 were up 13 percent at $1.28.