Biocellis is revolutionizing biological diagnostics with a breakthrough immunoassay technology capable of delivering results in less than 60 seconds, with picogram-level sensitivity and minimal sample preparation. This innovation is based on patented research developed over more than ten years at leading French scientific institutions.

Biocellis bioluminescence technology is the result of more than a decade of interdisciplinary research conducted at leading institutions such as the Pasteur Institute, the CNRS, and Inserm. Its robustness and reliability have been recognized at the national level: it has been selected by Santé publique France to carry out more than one million epidemiological tests for the surveillance of the French population during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Protected by international patents, this technology has been validated by a multidisciplinary team of physicists, biologists, and clinicians, guaranteeing scientific rigor, clinical relevance, and industrial potential.

The project supported by ID CLUSTER aims to drastically accelerate the development of new immunoassays, reducing development times from several months to a few weeks. This strategic advance will enable faster deployment of diagnostic tests and greater adaptability in the face of health crises and future pandemics.

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.

Sepsis is the body’s response to infection and affects 49 million people worldwide each year. In Europe, 3.4 million cases are reported each year, 40% of which occur in children under the age of 5, causing 680,000 deaths. Sepsis is caused mainly by bacterial (80-85%) or fungal (10-15%) infections.

The current therapeutic approach consists of administering empirical, broad-spectrum, high-dose antibiotic treatment without waiting for test results, as it is estimated that the probability of survival decreases by 7.5% for every hour of delay in effective anti-infective treatment. However, the current time required to obtain information identifying the pathogen and its possible resistance to antibiotics exceeds 12 to 24 hours.

This probabilistic treatment proves ineffective in 35% of cases and has significant side effects for surviving patients: more than 60% of them suffer from post-sepsis syndromes (PSS): repeated infections, organ dysfunction, cognitive decline, depression, etc.

This suboptimal use of antimicrobials has contributed to the selection of (multi)resistant bacteria and their spread among humans, livestock, and the environment.

The fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been a priority for the WHO since 2017 due to the risk of new pandemics emerging.

The ICARRE project, led by the startup Weezion, the Hospices Civils de Lyon, and Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University, aims to develop and bring to the clinical testing phase a rapid diagnostic solution for bacterial and fungal infections responsible for sepsis and their resistance to antimicrobials.

Through the development of Weezion DX, the first rapid, all-in-one, 100% automated diagnostic tool, the ICARRE project aims to: 

– enable a diagnosis to be delivered in 60-90 minutes, including the identification of pathogens covering more than 98% of epidemiology, the broad detection of antimicrobial resistance mechanisms for more than 98% of first-line molecule resistance mechanisms, categorize the pathogen as S/R (sensitive or resistant) with a prediction of the MIC (Minimum Inhibitory Concentration), all at a competitive cost of less than €50 per test, deployable on blood cultures for bacteremia and fungemia, and on isolates for other infectious locations.

– Improve patient care by introducing appropriate treatment more quickly: de-escalate (reducing post-sepsis syndromes, hospitalization costs, and combating antimicrobial resistance) or escalate (effective treatment increasing patient survival rates). 

– Help set up an integrated epidemiological surveillance tool for resistance to anticipate the emergence of new pandemics.

According to scientific publications, the savings generated by the routine use of Weezion DX will reduce hospital stays by 20% and PSS by 25%, resulting in savings of €2 billion per year for the French healthcare system alone.

The project builds on a long and fruitful history of collaboration between the three partners. They will benefit from the support of Infectious Disease Cluster to accelerate the market launch of Weezion DX and its deployment in hospital platforms across France, Europe, and worldwide.