OpGen subsidiary Ares Genetics announces the strategic expansion of ARESdb proprietary contents
December 14 2021 - 7:30AM
OpGen, Inc. (Nasdaq: OPGN, “OpGen” or the “Company”), a precision
medicine company harnessing the power of molecular diagnostics and
informatics to help combat infectious disease, announced today that
its subsidiary, Ares Genetics (Ares), has successfully completed
Phase 1 of its collaboration with a leading U.S. CRO and reference
lab, originally announced in August. During Phase 2, Ares will gain
access to 1,000 proprietary genome and AST datasets thereby
strategically enriching ARESdb with proprietary data for key
pathogens.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing
threat to public health believed to be causing 700,000 fatalities
globally each year and billions of U.S. dollars in healthcare
costs. Fueling the growing threat of AMR is the inappropriate use
of ineffective antibiotics, impacting patient outcomes and
promoting the emergence and spread of antibiotic resistant
pathogens. Leading global health organizations are therefore
calling for antibiotic stewardship through diagnostic innovations
that promote the optimal use of antibiotic agents.
Conventional culture-based diagnostics can
determine effective antibiotics through antibiotic susceptibility
testing (AST); however, they tend to be slow and insensitive. Ares
Genetics is addressing this problem from a different angle, using
artificial intelligence to accurately predict directly from genomic
data if a pathogen is susceptible or resistant to a given
antibiotic. Central to this approach are the datasets required to
train predictive models, comprised of genome and phenotypic AMR
data that have been generated under controlled conditions and a
robust model training and testing framework.
Ares Genetics has developed ARESdb, a leading
database on AMR, and has published several scientific studies on
the performance1,2 of its predictive models as well as important
considerations of model training3,4. ARESdb not only
comprehensively collects known genetic markers for AMR, but also
harbors more than 78,000 datasets essential for the development and
training of predictive models. This is up by over 40% from around
55,000 datasets a year ago.
“ARESdb is central to our development of
AI-powered applications for AMR prediction” stated Dr. Arne
Materna, CEO of Ares Genetics. “It is an essential component of a
number of our commercial solutions, including sequencing services
offered through our service laboratory located in Vienna, Austria,
and the recently launched AREScloud web application aimed at
infectious disease experts and professionals in infection
prevention and control. We are therefore very pleased to see that
our efforts to increase access to clinically relevant and
proprietary data through strategic collaborations is proving
successful.”
The value of ARESdb and machine learning for
predicting antibiograms from genomic data is increasingly
recognized by key opinion leaders around the world and has recently
materialized in a strategic data access transaction under which a
global corporation and leader in microbiology and infectious
disease diagnostics was granted access to a narrowly defined subset
of ARESdb corresponding to 1.1% of the current database
contents.
Ares Genetics intends to further increase the
value of ARESdb and grow its contents in the coming months and
years through strategic collaborations with external partners and
by supporting clinical trials conducted by its affiliates at OpGen.
OpGen CEO Oliver Schacht added: “Ares will also be applying its
next generation sequencing and AI-powered bioinformatics
capabilities to analyze the clinical patient samples collected
during OpGen’s Unyvero UTI clinical trial in the U.S. which will
further expand the unique and proprietary contents of ARESdb. We
expect Ares to become one of the key drivers of growth for OpGen in
the coming years as we also seek to expand the commercial footprint
and activities of Ares in the U.S. beginning in January of
2022.”
References
- Banerjee, R. et al. Core Genome Multi-Locus Sequence Typing and
Prediction of Antimicrobial Susceptibility Using Whole Genome
Sequences of Escherichia coli Bloodstream Infection Isolates.
Antimicrob Agents Ch AAC0113921 (2021)
doi:10.1128/aac.01139-21.
- Ferreira, I. et al. Species Identification and Antibiotic
Resistance Prediction by Analysis of Whole-Genome Sequence Data by
Use of ARESdb: an Analysis of Isolates from the Unyvero Lower
Respiratory Tract Infection Trial. J Clin Microbiol
58, (2020).
- Májek, P., Lüftinger, L., Beisken, S., Rattei, T. &
Materna, A. Genome-Wide Mutation Scoring for Machine-Learning-Based
Antimicrobial Resistance Prediction. Int J Mol Sci
22, 13049 (2021).
- Lüftinger, L., Májek, P., Beisken, S., Rattei, T. & Posch,
A. E. Learning From Limited Data: Towards Best Practice Techniques
for Antimicrobial Resistance Prediction From Whole Genome
Sequencing Data. Front Cell Infect Mi 11, 610348
(2021).
About OpGen, Inc.
OpGen, Inc. (Rockville, MD, USA) is a precision
medicine company harnessing the power of molecular diagnostics and
bioinformatics to help combat infectious disease. Along with
subsidiaries, Curetis GmbH and Ares Genetics GmbH, we are
developing and commercializing molecular microbiology solutions
helping to guide clinicians with more rapid and actionable
information about life threatening infections to improve patient
outcomes, and decrease the spread of infections caused by
multidrug-resistant microorganisms, or MDROs. OpGen’s product
portfolio includes Unyvero®, Acuitas® AMR Gene Panel and the ARES
Technology Platform including ARESdb®, using NGS technology and
AI-powered bioinformatics solutions for antibiotic response
prediction.
For more information, please visit
www.opgen.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes statements regarding
Ares Genetics’ strategic expansion of ARESdb and certain of its
related collaboration arrangements. These statements and other
statements regarding OpGen’s future plans and goals constitute
"forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of
the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934 and are intended to qualify for the safe
harbor from liability established by the Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are subject to risks
and uncertainties that are often difficult to predict, are beyond
our control, and which may cause results to differ materially from
expectations. Factors that could cause our results to differ
materially from those described include, but are not limited to,
our ability to successfully, timely and cost-effectively develop,
seek and obtain regulatory clearance for and commercialize our
product and services offerings, the rate of adoption of our
products and services by hospitals and other healthcare providers,
the fact that we may not effectively use proceeds from recent
financings, the realization of expected benefits of our business
combination transaction with Curetis GmbH, the success of our
commercialization efforts, the impact of COVID-19 on the Company’s
operations, financial results, and commercialization efforts as
well as on capital markets and general economic conditions, the
effect on our business of existing and new regulatory requirements,
and other economic and competitive factors. For a discussion of the
most significant risks and uncertainties associated with OpGen's
business, please review our filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance
on these forward-looking statements, which are based on our
expectations as of the date of this press release and speak only as
of the date of this press release. We undertake no obligation to
publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as
a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
OpGen:Oliver SchachtPresident
and CEOInvestorRelations@opgen.com
OpGen Press Contact:Matthew
Bretzius FischTank Marketing and PR
matt@fischtankpr.com
OpGen Investor Contact:Maxwell
ColbertEdison
Group mcolbert@edisongroup.com
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