OpGen / Curetis Obtain U.S. Patent Covering Acuitas Lighthouse® Software
GAITHERSBURG, Md., Oct. 23, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — OpGen, Inc. (Nasdaq: OPGN) announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (the “USPTO”) has allowed a key OpGen patent covering the Lighthouse Profiling technology used in the company’s software for tracking antimicrobial resistant pathogens. Patent application US 20160085912A1 “Systems, Apparatus, and Methods for Generating and Analyzing Resistome Profiles” covers the use of the company’s Acuitas Lighthouse® Software for real-time monitoring of superbug infections and other multi-drug resistant infections. The final patent is expected to be issued in the coming weeks.
The Lighthouse Software was developed for use with the Acuitas® AMR Gene Panel for testing bacterial isolates. In May 2019 OpGen filed a 510(k) submission for the Acuitas AMR Gene Panel for testing with bacterial isolates. The Acuitas AMR Gene Panel test provides results in under three hours that can be uploaded to the cloud in real-time for analysis using the Acuitas Lighthouse Profiling technology. The Lighthouse software automatically generates real-time alerts, when the degree of similarity between pathogens is above a threshold indicating a potential outbreak or a common source of infection such that the patient can be contained. The Lighthouse Software is currently available for Research Use Only and is not for use in diagnostic procedures. The company is currently involved in a demonstration project evaluating the use of real-time genomic profiling for hospital and statewide surveillance to help control antimicrobial resistance.
Evan Jones, Chairman and CEO of OpGen commented, “We are pleased the USPTO has recognized the novelty of this key component of our Acuitas Lighthouse Software. This is the first patent to be allowed in a broader family of patent applications covering prediction of antibiotic resistance and Acuitas AMR Gene Panel for rapid DNA testing. We are preparing to deploy this technology in hospitals throughout the United States with FDA-cleared products with a goal of improving patient outcomes and helping to address the rise of serious drug-resistant antimicrobial infections.”
About Antimicrobial-resistant Infections
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“the CDC”) estimates that annually in the United States we face 2 million illnesses, 23,000 deaths and $35 billion in lost productivity – all attributable to antibiotic resistant infections. Among the infectious diseases OpGen is working to address are carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) bacteria; they are untreatable and hard-to-treat infections on the rise among patients in medical facilities. CREs have become resistant to all or nearly all the antibiotics we have today. Almost half of hospital patients who get bloodstream infections from CRE bacteria die from the infection. The CDC has classified CREs as one of three urgent threats to the public health.
About OpGen
OpGen, Inc. is a precision medicine company harnessing the power of molecular diagnostics and informatics to help combat infectious disease. We are developing molecular information products and services for global healthcare settings, helping to guide clinicians with more rapid and actionable information about life threatening infections, improve patient outcomes, and decrease the spread of infections caused by multidrug-resistant microorganisms, or MDROs.
Our molecular diagnostics and informatics products, product candidates and services combine our Acuitas® molecular diagnostics and Acuitas Lighthouse® informatics platform for use with our proprietary, curated MDRO knowledgebase. We are working to deliver our products and services, some in development, to a global network of customers and partners. The Acuitas AMR Gene Panel (RUO) is available for Research Use Only and is not for use in diagnostic procedures. The Acuitas Lighthouse Software is not distributed commercially for antibiotic resistance prediction and is not for use in diagnostic procedures.
For more information, please visit www.opgen.com.
OpGen, Acuitas, and Acuitas Lighthouse are registered trademarks of OpGen, Inc.