Acolyte Biomedica
The world of Microbiology
Acolyte Biomedica Limited is a privately-funded UK company developing proprietary diagnostic systems for clinical microbiology. Acolyte’s technology (‘BacLiteTM’) allows microbial detection and antibiotic sensitivity determination in 2-5 hours instead of days, reducing hospital costs and improving management of infectious disease patients. BacLite technology is unique within infectious disease diagnostics, providing antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) and micro-organism detection direct from clinical specimens.
BacLite technology was originally developed by the Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (Dstl) at Porton Down, a division of The UK Ministry of Defence. It exploits the bioluminescent detection of Adenylate Kinase (AK) for ultrasensitive antibiotic susceptibility and micro-organism detection. Acolyte has the exclusive license to BacLite for clinical microbiology and benefits from an ongoing collaboration with Dstl, which is also a shareholder in Acolyte.
BacLite offers:
A flexible, customizable panel of antibiotic sensitivity/resistance tests that may be used with any ID technology (probes, immunoextraction, specific lysis or culture).
Integrated ID/AST products including ‘superbugs’ (e.g., MRSA)
Results in 2-5 hours directly from clinical specimens including blood cultures and swabs.
Acolyte’s first product, BacLite MRSA, is a 5-hour screening test direct from a swab, providing a cost effective same day MRSA result. BacLite MRSA will be launched in the UK in Q2 2005 and acts as a model assay for further screening tests for resistant organisms.
