Focus Technologies Awarded Contract to Track Antimicrobial Resistance

Focus Technologies, Inc. has announced that it has been awarded a five-year, $2.1 million contract with the Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA has selected Focus Technologies to help the organization develop a proactive and comprehensive assessment of antimicrobial resistance. The contract, titled "Surveillance of the Emergence of Antibiotic Resistance," will grant the FDA access to The Surveillance Network® (TSN®), Focus Technologies' comprehensive, real-time antibiotic resistance database.
This access will provide the FDA with unparalleled capabilities to effectively evaluate the development of antimicrobial agents intended to treat patients in the ever-changing landscape of antimicrobial resistance. "Focus' contract with the FDA demonstrates the range of scientific services and analytical tools available to our customers, which include commercial pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as government and regulatory agencies," commented Charles Harwood, Focus' President and CEO.

"This innovative scientific approach to surveillance allows us to track resistance in a way that hasn't been accomplished before, making it perfectly suited for the type of highly specialized analyses sought by the FDA."

The Surveillance Network contains more than 150 million susceptibility results representing all available antibiotics and all clinically relevant strains of bacteria. TSN provides real-time access to laboratory test results associated with more than 12.6 million bacterial strains and 7.4 million patients in the United States alone. The TSN database can provide answers to complex questions by supporting analyses based on a number of important criteria, such as specimen type, source of infection, patient age, geographic location, and specific resistance attributes and patterns.

TSN is the world's largest such information resource and provides results from 900 hospitals and institutions worldwide. Focus' surveillance capabilities will help the FDA plan for specific circumstances that may require intervention from a policy standpoint.

"Along with real-time data from our global partners, Focus' own researchers possess a wide range of expertise in such fields as molecular analysis, microbiology, and information technology," stated Daniel Sahm, Chief Scientific Officer of Focus Technologies. "By uniquely combining science and technology, Focus has revolutionized the way commercial organizations and government agencies track and combat infectious diseases."

Drug-resistant pathogens recently emerged as a major health concern in the United States. In response to this problem, the FDA will rely on Focus' TSN data to coordinate a federal response to the growing threat of antibiotic- resistant organisms. TSN data will assist the FDA by monitoring resistance to antimicrobial agents, studying multi-drug resistance and antibiotic resistance in different populations, and assessing the effectiveness of strategies to address antibiotic resistance.