SepTech

Sepsis and septic shock are life-threatening conditions caused by a dysregulated immune response to an infection with a high mortality rate of up to 25%. According to WHO, there are approximately 11 million sepsis-related deaths worldwide annually, representing about 20% of all global deaths. A timely and accurate treatment is critical since delays in administration of an effective antimicrobial therapy increases mortality by 10% with every hour. Unfortunately, current diagnostic approaches – the gold standard being blood culture – are inadequate for addressing this issue. For these reasons, there is a critical need for faster diagnostic tools and identification of the best treatment strategies, capable of providing an accurate classification of the sepsis to improve the overall survival of the patients. The project SEPTech intends to address and solve these problems with: a) design and prototype a system allowing a rapid diagnostic process - significantly faster than the actual clinical standard procedures – for the identification of the causing pathogens and antimicrobial resistance to strongly reduce the time for the administration of the most appropriate antimicrobial treatment; b) test the prototype using real world specimens from hospitalised septic patients against gold standard procedures; c) set the ground for go-to-market via a special purpose vehicle and d) prepare for a round of funding by private and public investors to obtain IVD CE mark and start commercialising the device.