UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) Innovate Accelerator is a joint funding initiative with Innovate UK (IUK) designed to help companies drive their innovation, product development and intellectual property value faster than might be possible with equity investment alone.
AgPlus is delighted to be the recipient of the UKI2S/ Innovate Fund. The grant will allow us to push through the final stages of clinical validation and commercialisation of our Point of Care Agilis Reader Platform.
AgPlus is working with key partners in the diagnostics industry to develop a range of assays for the detection of various diseases states either by direct detection or through detection of human biomarkers elevated in the body in response to the disease.
A key assay AgPlus is currently developing is for the differentiation of bacterial versus viral infection and thus whether or not antibiotics are prescribed. We believe this assay has the potential to have a huge impact in primary and secondary care in mitigation against the use of antibiotics unnecessarily which in turn will have the longer-term impact of mitigating against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the deaths associated with this. Currently it is estimated that 50% of antibiotics are mis prescribed and that at least 25,000 death per annum in Europe alone associated with AMR costing the economy 1.5 Billion pounds.
The AgPlus assay utilises a dimeric form of Human Neutrophil Lipocalin (HNL) that has shown better sensitivity and specificity than C-Reactive Protein (CRP) and Procalcitonin (PCT) in the differentiation of bacterial infections. (more info here)
The grant will allow AgPlus to further invest in the development of the Agilis reader and enable us to clinically validate the HNL assay in Europe with our partner Diagnostics Development.
