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Avelo, VIVOLTA, and BLINK have announced they have won a €1.5M Eurostars grant to develop a new solution for diagnosing lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs).
The three companies, based in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany – are joining forces in the BreathCounts consortium to create an innovative, non-invasive system to diagnose lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) using a patient’s breath as sample material. LRTIs are currently the fourth most lethal disease worldwide, causing more than 2.5 million deaths annually, and insufficient diagnostic methods for these infections is a major problem.
The companies will aim at developing a disposable breath collection device, incorporating an electrospun filter, as well as a high-throughput diagnostic assay capable of screening multiple pathogens at the point-of-need. The project will span two years and lay the foundation for market launch in 2027.
The solution will be the world’s first breath-based system capable of fast, accurate, and specific diagnosis of LRTIs, and will be simple-to-use for maximum adoption around the world. Using this system, clinicians will be able to distinguish between viral and bacterial infections, specifying the underlying cause of infection and drug resistance genes, thus informing the best possible treatment. Particularly, as bacterial resistance from the overuse and misuse of antibiotics for non-bacterial infections grows in significance, providing an accurate, fast, and specific diagnosis will help clinicians prescribe the right medication and help combat this major global health problem.
Melanie Aregger, co-founder and CEO of Avelo, commented: “We are thrilled about this opportunity. Joining forces with VIVOLTA and BLINK will help us to develop and validate our AveloCollect breath sampling kit, which has the potential to revolutionise the field of respiratory medicine. This consortium is highly synergistic, and its expertise will greatly support our journey towards improving the diagnosis of LRTIs and clinical outcomes, as well as combatting antimicrobial resistance.”
Ramon Solberg, CTO and CEO ad interim of VIVOLTA, said: “Joining the BreathCounts consortium is a great opportunity for VIVOLTA and we are delighted to help bring this exciting diagnostic solution to the millions of patients worldwide who need it. We particularly look forward to demonstrating the full potential of our MediSpin platform, the world’s first and only fully automated medical electrospinning manufacturing system, for the mass-production of the AveloCollect device’s filter. Together with Avelo and BLINK, we believe this is a winning product coupled with a winning team.”
The LRTIs solution consists of two products used in conjunction: (1) AveloCollect, a novel breath sampling device capturing the infection-causing pathogen(s) directly from exhaled breath through its proprietary aerosol filter technology, and (2) Respirex, a unique molecular diagnostic test using the world’s first digital PCR point-of-care analyser for sensitive detection of LRTIs.
The AveloCollect breath collector, developed by Avelo, represents a breakthrough in LRTI sample collection because current methods are a major limiting factor for diagnosis: they miss LRTIs (swabs or saliva), are hard to obtain (sputum), or are highly invasive (bronchoalveolar lavage), leaving up to 50% of patients without an accurate diagnosis. In contrast, AveloCollect captures biological sample material, including the infection-causing pathogens, from the patient’s breath in a non-invasive and fast manner.
The AveloCollect device also incorporates a high-efficiency filter material, created by a specialised manufacturing process called electrospinning. Vivolta, a world leading company in medical electrospinning, will be responsible for optimising and scaling this process up for commercial phase by leveraging its proprietary MediSpin platform, which is the world’s first and only fully automated, mass production system qualified for electrospun medical products.
Respirex , developed by BLINK, is a specialised LRTI test can rapidly identify multiple pathogens at once, measured from a single AveloCollect breath sample. The Respirex assay, which identifies a pathogen’s specific DNA/RNA fingerprint, is based on BLINK’s proprietary digital PCR technology. It enables highly precise and extremely broad molecular analysis of a single sample via nanoreactor bead technology, enabling dozens to hundreds of tests in one. The Respirex assay will be produced in the form of a cartridge, containing all reagents necessary for the test, greatly reducing time and variability of other systems where reagents must be added separately by a technician. After adding the breath sample from the AveloCollect device, the Respirex cartridge can be rapidly analysed in BLINK’s first-of-its-kind point-of-care analyser, the BLINK ONE.