Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are the second most common bacterial infection, affecting about 20 million people in the U.S. and over 200 million people world-wide each year.
UTIs can spread into the blood, causing urosepsis. This happens over 200,000 time per year and 13,000 people die of urosepsis each year in the US. This makes UTIs the third most fatal infectious disease.
They are also one of the most common bacterial infections of childhood, accounting for nearly 50,000 hospital admissions per year in the United States and over $520 million of aggregated hospital charges.
Unfortunately, 1950s-era technology using a Petri dish culture test is the current standard to diagnose UTIs. This test takes 2 to 3 days, including an antibiotic susceptibility test (AST) that is required – in part – because antibiotic abuse has resulted in over half of UTIs being resistant to the most common antibiotics.
Worse yet, and especially with pediatric patients where urine collection can be problematic: urine samples are often contaminated, requiring re-sampling and a re-starting of the clock.
As a result, most patients are never tested for a suspected UTI and instead are given a ‘best guess’ prescription, half of which will not be effective and further contribute to the problem of antibiotic resistance.
Urinary Technologies Corp (UTC) has developed an antibody-based test to diagnose the specific bacteria causing an infection while we simultaneously test which antibiotics will be most effective at killing those bacteria, and all in less than 2 hours. UTC accomplishes this by using proven technologies in our patented and patent pending assays.
This approach enables UTC to run multiple antibody assays and the AST in parallel using low-cost disposable cartridges, yielding both a confirmed diagnosis for the 9 bacterial species that cause over 99% of UTIs and an AST in less than 2 hours. Such tests are more accurate and much faster than traditional Petri dish cultures.
Public health and start-up promotion
Med tech business development, R&D and patent law; technology commercialization
Clinical practice and lab management, focusing on clinical testing, from assay performance to bedside care
Microfluidic diagnostics development; serial diagnostics entrepreneur
Regulatory affairs and pediatric infectious diseases; former FDA Director
Former managing Director and Senior Research Analyst following medical technology companies at Piper Jaffray; managed many IPOs
Building healthcare technology start-ups, including successful company exits