NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Molecular diagnostics firm Curetis has established a wholly owned subsidiary Ares Genetics that will focus on developing antibiotic resistance tests, the company said this week.
Ares Genetics, headquartered in Vienna, Austria, will harness the Genetic Antibiotic Resistance and Susceptibility Database (GEAR) that Curetis recently acquired from Siemens to understand the genetic basis for antibiotic resistance.
The new firm will be headed by Andreas Posch, who joined Curetis in March from Siemens, where he was head of bioinformatics and responsible for GEAR. Achim Plum, chief commercial officer at Curetis, will also serve as managing director of Ares.
Ares plans to use the GEAR database, which contains DNA sequences of more than 11,000 bacterial strains and related sensitivity data for 21 antibiotics, to identify biomarkers and biomarker combinations that predict antibiotic resistance, as well as potential new targets for antimicrobial drugs.
"GEAR will expand Curetis' content leadership with novel antibiotic resistance markers and form the basis for additional business, including clinical decision support, pharma research, or next-generation sequencing interpretation services," Posch said in a statement. "Our goal is to advance GEAR as a collaborative research platform for academic and translational research, public health, and industry partners."