Molsid

The MICAST® project, developed by Molsid, aims to combat antibiotic resistance, which poses a major threat to global health. The proliferation of antibiotic-resistant pathogenic bacteria is a major health crisis, currently responsible for 1.2 million direct deaths per year worldwide. It is a silent pandemic that, according to the WHO, threatens to cause 10 million deaths annually by 2052, rendering common infectious diseases incurable. Given this emergency, rapid diagnosis is vital, as each hour of inappropriate treatment increases the mortality rate of patients with sepsis by 7%, for example.

The main objective of the project is to provide an innovative and rapid antibiotic susceptibility test (antibiogram) using patented fluorogenic biotracer technology, capable of drastically reducing the time it takes to obtain results. Currently, standard disk diffusion methods, which are the most widely used by diagnostic laboratories worldwide, take a minimum of 48 hours to provide an antibiogram. MICAST®, a new-generation antibiogram, aims to reduce this time to 28 hours for standard antibiograms, effectively allowing laboratories to deliver results one day earlier, and to just 4 hours for cases of sepsis based on positive blood cultures.

This acceleration is crucial because it allows patients to be treated more quickly with effective antibiotics and reduces mortality by 20 to 30% according to studies for all types of infections and pathogens combined. The economic benefits for the healthcare system are also significant: a reduction in hospital stays of 6 days on average, representing savings of €2 million per year for a large hospital, while reducing the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics to preserve our current arsenal against the development of new resistances.