Researchers at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, the University of Queensland, Griffith University, the University of Adelaide and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have unlocked a key to making existing front-line antibiotics work again against Streptococcus pneumoniae, the bacteria that cause pneumonia.

An international study led by scientists at the University of Exeter in the U.K. suggests how to combine antibiotic and bacteriophage therapy optimally, in order to reduce antibiotic use and potentially prevent multidrug resistance in bacteria.

Xandar Kardian Inc. closed a $10 million series A funding round to support the rollout of the company’s contactless health monitoring solution. Phoenix Venture Partners led the round with participation from Portfolia Active Aging & Longevity Fund, Taronga Ventures and others. “With the new financing round, Xandar Kardian looks forward to expanding its core team in Toronto and in the United States, in addition to placing increased emphasis on R&D and mass production for its technologies,” Xandar Kardian co-founder and CEO Sam Yang told BioWorld.

Memed Diagnostics Ltd. has published new data from an EU Commission funded clinical trial evaluating its blood test for differentiating bacterial and viral infections. The prospective, multicenter cohort study, titled “AutoPilot-Dx,” was carried out in emergency wards in Italy and Germany. The goals of the study were to validate the performance of Memed’s BV test in a broad pediatric population with respiratory tract infections or fever without source and estimate its potential to impact antibiotic use.

Color Health Inc. followed its rainbow to another pot of gold, collecting $100 million in a series E financing round led by Kindred Ventures and funds advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. Returning funding round participants also included General Catalyst, the company’s long-time lead investor, Viking Global Investors and Emerson Collective. With the latest cash infusion, the company’s total funds raised to date reached $378 million and its valuation of $4.6 billion propelled it into the top dozen health care unicorns. Founded in 2017 as Color Genomics, the Burlingame, Calif.-based company has raised more than two-thirds of its total funding this year with today’s series E following the close of a $167 million series D round in January.

As a counterpoint to the raft of wellness-promoting smartwatches, Purdue University and Physiq Inc. have developed a smartwatch algorithm that flags illness. A year after launching their co-development program, the two organizations reported they have created an algorithm designed for smartwatches that enables detection of early signs of infection. The algorithm is already in use in a number of Physiq’s customers’ applications, Physiq Chief Scientific Officer Stephan Wegerich told BioWorld.

Selux Diagnostics Inc. has received breakthrough device designation from the FDA for its Next Generation Phenotyping (NGP) platform for positive blood culture and sterile body fluid samples. The NGP technology is a diagnostic platform designed to help with the delivery of personalized antimicrobial therapies within 24 hours. The Boston-based company is hoping the technology can tackle the global antibiotic resistance crisis. According to the World Health Organization, antimicrobial resistance is one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity.

Trimers of nanobodies, a simpler form of antibody made by some animal species, were effective at preventing and treating COVID-19 in preclinical studies, researchers reported in the Sept. 22, 2021, issue of Nature Communications. The findings, along with others, could form the basis of an inhaled biologics treatment for COVID-19 and, ultimately, other respiratory diseases.

The U.S. FDA has cleared Memed Diagnostics Ltd.'s blood test for distinguishing between bacterial and viral infections. The diagnostic test has been tipped as an essential step in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. While most infectious disease tests look for the pathogen, Memed BV is an advanced host immune response test that measures the levels of immune system proteins and applies proprietary algorithms to generate an immune signature.

A multicenter study has found that a multiplex diagnostic panel developed by Opgen Inc. can reduce the use of inappropriate antibiotic therapy by 45.1%. Opgen’s Unyvero Hospitalized Pneumonia (HPN) panel uses PCR technology that can detect 21 pathogens and 17 antibiotic resistance markers in less than five hours. During the European Respiratory Society conference, Rockville, Md.-based Opgen presented data showing that combined with antibiotic stewardship, its HPN panel decreased time on inappropriate antibiotic therapy in hospitalized patients with pneumonia at risk for Gram-negative rods.