MicroPhage Partners with Cardinal Health on Funding, Marketing First One-Day Susceptibility Test

LONGMONT, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MicroPhage, Inc., developers of quick, easy-to-use diagnostic products for bacterial identification and antibiotic susceptibility and resistance testing, announced today it has reached an agreement with Cardinal Health granting exclusive rights to market the KeyPath™ MRSA/MSSA Blood Culture Test product line in North America.

“Cardinal Health is focused on offering our customers new and innovative products that can improve patient care”

Under this agreement, Cardinal Health will gain the exclusive distribution rights to the recently 510(k)-cleared KeyPath MRSA/MSSA Blood Culture Test – BT and other products in development for testing blood culture specimens for Staphylococcus aureus, in the U.S., Canada and U.S. territories. In exchange for these rights Cardinal Health has provided MicroPhage with operational funding for development and commercialization of new products.

“We are very pleased to have Cardinal Health as our exclusive marketing partner in the U.S. and Canada,” said Don Mooney, president of MicroPhage, Inc. “Their outstanding reputation and presence in U.S. hospitals affords MicroPhage the greatest opportunity for success with the launch of its first diagnostic test.”

The KeyPath™ MRSA/MSSA Blood Culture Test – BT is unique because it provides same-day antibiotic susceptibility and resistance results for these deadly infections. In a previously released statement, Alberto Gutierrez, Ph.D., director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostics Device Evaluation and Safety in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health said, “Clearing this test gives health care professionals a test that can confirm S. aureus and then identify whether the bacteria is MRSA or MSSA. This not only saves time in diagnosing potentially life-threatening infections but also allows health care professionals to optimize treatment and start appropriate contact precautions to prevent the spread of the organism.” The mortality rate for Staph aureus bloodstream infections is in the range of 30 to 40 percent.

“Cardinal Health is focused on offering our customers new and innovative products that can improve patient care,” said Chris Kerski, senior vice president and general manager of Scientific Products at Cardinal Health. “KeyPath^TM provides a long-awaited solution to treating patients with life-threatening infections.”

About MicroPhage

Based in Longmont, Colorado, privately held MicroPhage, Inc. develops accelerated, easy-to-use diagnostic products for bacterial identification and antibiotic susceptibility/resistance testing. Using its proprietary Bacteriophage Amplification Test (BAT™) platform, the Company has developed patented processes that provide a platform for quick, easy-to-use, inexpensive diagnostic tests. The MicroPhage BAT^TM test platform does not require any instrumentation and is simple to operate, enabling microbiology testing outside of traditional laboratory settings.