Health and Biotech company MedFluid has developed the fastest, first-in-class antimicrobial susceptibility test that will aid in providing precise medical prescriptions to improve the health and well-being of patients.

MedFluid Founder and Head of Microfluidics R&D Bon Lee noted that, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), antimicrobial resistance was one of the ten threats to global health in 2019. "It is happening around the world, and North America alone has more than 2 million cases and 23 thousand deaths."

"Global research shows that 50% usage of antibiotics is inappropriate, and empirical treatment is one of the main causes. Empirical treatment usually gives 2~3 antibiotics at the same time to suppress unknown bacteria.

However, no medical device currently in the market is able to conduct an antibiotics combination test to either confirm or predict if a combination is effective. Moreover, the current, time-consuming procedure for antimicrobial susceptibility test (AST) needs to be addressed urgently."

fAST: Platform for Rapid Detection and Screening of Disease Diagnoses

MedFluid's Personalized Antibiotic Screening Platform fAST automates both genotype and phenotype detections to identify bacteria within 1.5 hours and finish the multiple antibiotics combination test within 5 hours.

fAST / Automated bacteria identification and multiple antibiotics combination test. MedFluid used microfluidics as the core technique to develop the fAST in vitro diagnostic (IVD) system to support the precision medicine of antibiotics, targeting the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which was one of the ten threats to global health identified by the WHO in 2019.

"We are committed to developing microfluidic platforms for rapid detection and screening tools used in disease diagnosis and to supporting precise medical prescriptions to improve the health and well-being of patients …We are committed to optimizing the quality of patient-specific medications for infectious disease."

"We are the fastest first-in-class system on the market that can optimize three different kinds of antibiotic combinations, providing clinicians with accurate and personalized results," said Lee.

Building A Personalized Antibiotics Screening Platform

fAST has three major features, including sensitivity, rapidity, and flexibility. The optimized sensitivity lets users complete AST with only 1% of the samples required by current methods. Detection time has also been shortened to 5 hrs from the 24 hrs required by traditional methods. Moreover, fAST allows doctors to conduct personalized tests, even allowing combinations of up to 3 different kinds of antibiotics at once.

A Widely Recognized Company since Its Establishment

MedFuid was founded in 2018. In less than 2 years, the company has received numerous recognitions for its work. The company won the Entrepreneurship Outstanding Award from the MOST FITI Innovation & Startups Program in June 2019. It was also the winner of the 2019 InnoVEX Grand Prize and Special Award. In May 2019, MedFluid won 1st prize at the 6th NTHU Entrepreneur Days Award and was selected by the Center Innovation Program.

The company was selected as a bridge to MassChallenge Taiwan, China Top 14 Startups, selected for Taiwan, China Tech Arena (TTA)'s 2019 Prototyping Program, and was a top-15 team in the MOST FITI Innovation & Startups Program. This year, MedFluid was selected by TTA as one of the 100 featured Taiwan, Chinaese startups showcased at CES 2021.