The WHO stated in 2014 that “Without urgent action, the world is headed for a ‘post-antibiotic era’ in which common infections and minor injuries which have been treatable for decades can once again kill, the benefits of advanced medical treatments such as chemotherapy and major surgery will be lost ”. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is considered to be one of the biggest threats to global health . Without the proper action on AMR, the world GDP is projected to be 2 to 3.5% lower than it otherwise would be in 2050, implicating a EUR 100 trillion world GDP loss. The annual deaths attributable to AMR can reach 10 million persons compared to today’s low estimate of 700,000 persons.
Due to increasing AMR, infections like sepsis are becoming harder to treat as antibiotics become less effective.
Sepsis affects more people than lung, breast and prostate cancer combined. It is also connected to extremely high mortality rates, with a fatality case occurring every 3 seconds . The condition spreads quickly and affects multiple organs, often leading to septic shock. The severity of sepsis determines the clinical outcome. Studies have shown that death rates can reach 20% for sepsis, 50% for severe sepsis and up to 80% for septic shock .
A timely treatment with the appropriate antibiotic in sepsis is thus critical for the patients. However, in most European hospitals, antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) still follows the methods (disk diffusion and Etest) that are based on discoveries back from the 1860s. Their main disadvantage is the long time to diagnosis – it takes 24-48 hours to deliver results. Doctors will always treat sepsis empirically since every minute until possible appropriate treatment has effect on patient survival. But with globally increasing AMR, empirical treatment is failing more and more often. Important is that the sooner the antibiotic treatment can be adjusted to match the AST results, the higher chance of survival for the patient and the shorter the hospital stay.
Given the limitations of the established diagnostic tools, the medical community advocates a pressing need for improved diagnostic technologies that would decrease the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics and enable more timely tailor-made treatments. From the business perspective, there is a significant opportunity for growth in being able to satisfy this demand. The global sepsis diagnostic market is expected to reach EUR 536 million by 2023, at CAGR of 9.1% between 2018 and 2023.
