OpGen’s subsidiary Curetis, FIND extend R&D collaboration agreement

OpGen reported that its German subsidiary Curetis GmbH has signed an extended and continued research and development, R&D, collaboration agreement with FIND. Following the successful completion of the feasibility phase of the collaboration and having met all milestones on time and within budgets, the parties now plan to collaborate on first phases of product development of an antimicrobial resistance cartridge from blood culture that is tailored to the needs of low- and middle-income countries in terms of panel design and coverage of specific genetic variants of bacterial strains and their AMR markers in such countries, as well as ensuring attractive cost profile and pricing models that allow for access to such rapid testing in LMICs. This extended R&D collaboration now covers the development of an AMR assay and Unyvero A30 cartridge for AMR detection from commonly used blood culture bottles as well as the corresponding software plugin development and full analytical performance evaluation. The expected duration of the development phase is about ten months and the agreed-upon project budget for the extended contract is approximately $0.6 million split into an up-front payment and two milestone payments upon delivery of successful development results.