Cepheid and bioMerieux to Collaborate on Sepsis Assays

Cepheid (Sunnyvale, CA, USA) and BioMerieux (Marcy l'Etoile, France) announced that they have entered into a strategic relationship wherein both companies will use the best of their respective technologies and commercial strengths towards the development and commercialization of an innovative line of sepsis test products on the GeneXpert platform.

The companies will jointly develop the products, Cepheid will be in charge of manufacturing, and BioMerieux will distribute the sepsis assays on an exclusive worldwide basis. The product menu comprises both bacterial and fungal identification assays as well a series of genetic markers for antibiotic resistance. Cepheid will continue to complete development, manufacture, and marketing of the methicillin-resistant Stapylococcus aureus (MRSA) products.

We are extremely excited about our relationship with Cepheid, said BioMerieux CEO Stephane Bancel. Together, we will create the next generation of molecular diagnostics systems, leveraging BioMerieux's blood culture and immunology solutions and its deep biology expertise with Cepheid's unique system and reagent development experience, all focused on ease of use in highly clinically relevant situations. Together, we will bring nucleic acid diagnostics into routine clinical use to places and applications where it is needed most. This agreement strengthens our 2007–2012 strategy because sepsis is one of our strategic diseases and we want to expand our molecular biology commercial offer.

In addition to the jointly developed sepsis panel and potentially related applications for hospital-acquired pneumonia, BioMerieux has also granted a non-exclusive worldwide license to Cepheid under the Hiramatsu patents on MRSA for all applications in addition to the jointly developed sepsis panel and related applications.

Severe sepsis is one of the most significant challenges in critical care. Each year, more than 750,000 people in the United States will develop severe sepsis, and more than 215,000 will die from the condition. Treating patients with severe sepsis costs U.S. hospitals nearly US$17 billion a year. With standard supportive care alone, mortality remains unacceptably high, at 28–50%. Recent research indicates that early identification and appropriate treatment of the underlying cause of severe sepsis may improve patient outcomes. Understanding severe sepsis--recognizing the signs and making an early, accurate diagnosis--is the key to improving patient care and increasing survival rates.

Cepheid is a molecular diagnostics company that develops, manufactures, and markets fully-integrated systems for genetic analysis in the clinical, industrial, and biothreat markets. The company's systems enable rapid, sophisticated genetic testing for organisms and genetic-based diseases by automating otherwise complex manual laboratory procedures.

BioMerieux is an international diagnostics group that specializes in the field of in vitro diagnostics for clinical and industrial applications. The company designs, develops, manufactures, and markets systems (i.e. reagents, instruments, and software) used in clinical and industrial applications.



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