Drug hypersensitivity to antibiotics, mainly Beta-lactams (BLCs) affects more than 2.5 million European citizens. Moreover, preventable adverse drug reactions are estimated in additional hospitalization costs of 1750-4500 €/patient. Currently, the allergy diagnosis is mainly based on the information given by invasive, single, and risky in vivo assays. In daily practice, few in vitro diagnostic methods are available and only used at the tertiary health services. These tests also lack of sensitivity (>0.35 kUA/L) and selectivity (<98%), resulting in an inaccurate diagnosis, analyze few drugs allergens (5), are time consuming (60-180 min), and expensive (30 €/allergen).

COBIOPHAD aims the development of an innovative in vitro diagnostic (IVD) device for diagnosis of IgE-mediated drug allergies by building an integrated biophotonic system based on compact disc technology. For that, key enabling technologies will be integrated in order to achieve high sensitive (<0.1 kUA/L), selective (>98%), multiplexed (10 BLCs), rapid (30 min), and low-cost (2.4 €/allergen) drug allergy test. The solution involves an advanced approach to the diagnosis and management of drug allergy with the aim to ameliorate patient safety.

The consortium comprises multidisciplinary knowledge on optics, electronics, advanced materials, biotechnology, smart microstructures, microfluidics, surface/organic chemistry, allergy, manufacturing systems, and telecom networking. Also, the key industrial actors, present in the consortium, will contribute to the manufacturing and placing the product on the IVD market.