Sydney startup fast-track results for drug resistance


Antimicrobial resistance is an ever increasing global public health risk, threatening the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections.

Thanks to startup SpeeDx - a Sydney based company founded in 2009 - a new clinical testing technology is now available, finding a solution to the growing threat of drug resistance. Technology developed and patented by SpeeDx is also used by firms overseas to provide personalised treatments for infectious diseases and cancer.

SpeeDx provides diagnostic technology for the testing of sexually transmitted infections (STI), with their first commercially available product providing tests for the disease Mycoplasma genitalium. Often undiagnosed, it cannot be found by culture testing and requires DNA testing making it more complex to diagnose. SpeeDx has developed technology making patients aware within 24 hours whether they have Mycoplasma genitalium, as well as knowledge of an individual's antibiotic resistance.

SpeeDx looks to developing an antibiotic drug resistance test for Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which is the bacteria that causes gonorrhoea. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) details that antibiotic resistance to gonorrhoea is in its top 3 most urgent threats to public health.

Source: Austrade


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