Research teams awarded seed funding to develop rapid point-of-care tests to prevent misuse of antibiotics
In the latest round of Discovery Award seed funding, four research teams from India have been confirmed as recipients of Longitude Prize Discovery Award grants to further fund their research.
The Discovery Awards are seed fund grants to help teams further develop their research and support their bids to win the global Longitude Prize. This third round of seed funding to the total value of $200,000 draws on a grant provided by BIRAC the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council in India (a Government of India not-for-profit enterprise) and was open exclusively to teams based in India.
The £10 million five-year Longitude Prize was launched in 2014, setting the challenge to develop a point-of-care test to detect infections to help ensure that the right antibiotics are used at the right time. Now in its third year, the Longitude Prize will reward a competitor that can develop a point-of-care diagnostic test to help conserve antibiotics for future generations. The Longitude Prize is run by innovation foundation, Nesta, and supported by Innovate UK as funding partner.
Dr Renu Swarup, Senior Adviser, DBT and Managing Director, BIRAC comments, “Drug-resistant bacteria are a serious threat to millions of people in India and around the world. This is why BIRAC is supporting the Longitude Prize Discovery Awards to help further already promising research into the crucial development of a rapid diagnostic test to identify whether antibiotics are needed. Indian start-ups can be part of a global solution”
Daniel Berman, Longitude Prize lead at Nesta, the innovation foundation, adds: “The lack of reliable rapid tests mean that people do not know when and if they need antibiotics. This leads to underuse and unnecessary over-prescription of antibiotics and is one of the major factors in the development of resistant strains of bacteria. Across the globe we need accurate point-of-care diagnostic tools to maximise the chances that antibiotics are only used when medically necessary. The Longitude Prize now has 250 competitors worldwide all competing to find a cheap and effective diagnostic tool that can be used anywhere in the world to help stem the misuse and overuse of antibiotics.”
They have awarded 29 Discovery Awards to date in 2016 and 2017 around the world from countries including India, Israel, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, the USA and the UK. Our Round 1 and Round 2 winners received grants up to £25,000 and have used the funding to support their work including hiring extra research staff, to help fund independent clinical validation and develop technical solutions for the challenges they face in making their diagnostic tests.
Teams are at varying stages in development of their tests, ranging from proof of concept to the development of prototypes.
The four winning research teams from India are:
- cAST, multiple locations in India
- IDI Group, Bangalore, Karnataka
- NanoDx Healthcare, New Delhi
- Spotsense, Bangalore, Karnataka