Cepheid Partners with Fleming Initiative to Fight Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)

First diagnostic company to pledge support towards collaborative efforts for real-world solutions to a global problem.

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Cepheid announced today an important partnership with the Fleming Initiative, a global collaboration established by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Imperial College London to combat antimicrobial resistance.

The Fleming Initiative and Cepheid will introduce the partnership at an event in New York aligned with the United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting about AMR¹.

The Fleming Initiative brings together research scientists, policymakers, clinicians, behavioral experts, public and commercial partners to provide the networks, expertise and skills to provide equitable solutions to AMR at the global scale.    

"Almost everyone who has visited a healthcare provider for an undiagnosed infection has taken antibiotics as a preventative measure at one time in our lives. Too often, we are given broad spectrum antibiotics for viral infections or allergic reactions instead of as a treatment for a bacterial infection. That's how antimicrobial resistance develops," said Vitor Rocha, President of Cepheid. "Accurate diagnostics are at the frontline of the battle to eliminate preventative antibiotic use. Every one of us can help reduce unnecessary antibiotic use by requesting an accurate diagnostic test to identify the source of an infection before we begin a course of antibiotics."

The Initiative will draw on diverse expertise and public involvement to tackle antimicrobial resistance from all angles. The partners will work together to catalyze worldwide action in the fight against AMR where poverty, climate change, and health inequality exacerbate the issues caused by drug-resistant infections.

"At the Fleming Initiative we aim to unlock powerful new ideas to drive significant change in the fight against AMR. This requires collective innovation across industries, from practitioners to policy-makers and the public," said Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham, Executive Chair of the Fleming Initiative. "I am delighted to welcome Cepheid as our first diagnostics partner. Currently 20% of antibiotic prescriptions given in primary care lack an appropriate diagnosis. We have to do better. Cepheid's expertise will be essential to our efforts to ensure antibiotics work for generations to come."

AMR is widely recognized by the World Health Organization as one of the top ten public health threats in the world. A study published this month in the Lancet² found that resistance to antibiotics has led to over one million deaths each year since 1990. The study predicts increasing rates of drug-resistant infections will cause annual deaths to rise from 1.14 million in 2021 to 1.91 million in 2050 and forecasts that without further policy interventions, global deaths will reach 39 million between 2025 and 2050—the equivalent of three deaths per minute.

Cepheid's significant pledge to the Fleming Initiative will be used for collaborative scientific and clinical research, with a focus on strengthening and expanding the use of in vitro diagnostics to support antimicrobial stewardship programs to enable responsible antibiotic use and control the rise of resistant infections. The collaboration will focus initially on the most critical areas of AMR:

1. Encourage active screening for carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) for earlier detection of critical infections and colonization
2. Implementation of community-based acute respiratory infection (ARI) testing and care pathways to provide decentralized diagnostic and treatment pathways
3. Accelerate a precision medicine approach for sepsis to identify and treat patients with a particular sepsis response state

About Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)
AMR occurs when microbes including bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to the drugs and treatments society relies on to kill them and prevent disease. If measures are not urgently implemented to combat AMR, the consequences will be far reaching. Uncomplicated infections and minor injuries could once again become life-threatening.

AMR kills over one million people around the world each year³ and is a growing challenge in treating leading infectious disease killers such as tuberculosis, Escherichia coli (E. coli), and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). It has been caused in part by the widespread misuse and overuse of antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines, in humans and livestock, which has led to the global spread of drug-resistant microbes. To effectively tackle AMR, global awareness and behavior change is needed.

About Cepheid
Cepheid is dedicated to improving healthcare by pioneering molecular diagnostics that combine speed, accuracy, and flexibility. The company's GeneXpert® systems and Xpert® tests automate highly complex and time-consuming manual procedures, providing A Better Way for institutions of any size to perform world-class PCR testing. Cepheid's broad test portfolio spans respiratory infections, blood virology, women's and sexual health, TB and emerging infectious diseases, healthcare-associated infectious diseases, oncology and human genetics. The company's solutions deliver actionable results where they are needed most – from central laboratories and hospitals to near-patient settings. For more information, visit http://www.cepheid.com.

Fleming Initiative
The Fleming Initiative has a strong focus on diagnostics so that the right antimicrobial drugs are given to those who need them, as well as focusing on education and public engagement to support behavioural change to reduce drug-resistant infections. Launched through a partnership between Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Imperial College London, the Fleming Centre will combine cutting edge research, public engagement, and work with policymakers to drive a global change. Earlier this year global biopharma company GSK became the first founding partner of the Initiative, with a pledge of £45m.

The international work of the Initiative will be carried out by establishing a global network of centres in strategic locations around the world that will find, test, and scale solutions to AMR. Taking an enabling and scaling role, the first Fleming Centre will be based at St Mary's Hospital in London - at the site of the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928 - and will form a key part of the Imperial's WestTech Corridor and Paddington Life Sciences. As Patron of the appeal to create the Fleming Initiative, His Royal Highness Prince William, the Prince of Wales, is supporting efforts over the next four years to develop this global HQ for the Fleming Initiative programmes.    

About Imperial College London
Imperial College London is a global top ten university with a world-class reputation. Imperial's 22,000 students and 8,000 staff are working to solve the biggest challenges in science, medicine, engineering and business. Imperial ranks sixth in the 2024 QS World University Rankings and eighth in the 2024 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. The 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF) found that it has a greater proportion of world-leading research than any other UK university. It also received a Gold Award in the 2023 Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). Imperial was named University of the Year in the Daily Mail University Guide 2024, University of the Year for Graduate Employment in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024, and awarded a Queen's Anniversary Prize for its COVID-19 response. For more information, visit https://www.imperial.ac.uk/.

¹UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on antimicrobial resistance 2024 https://www.who.int/news-room/events/detail/2024/09/26/default-calendar/un-general-assembly-high-level-meeting-on-antimicrobial-resistance-2024

²Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance 1990–2021: a systematic analysis with forecasts to 2050 (Accessed Sept. 2024)
Naghavi, Mohsen et al.
The Lancet, Volume 0, Issue 0

³World Health Organization: Antimicrobial resistance (Accessed Sept. 2024)
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial-resistance

For Cepheid Media Inquiries:
Darwa Peterson
media.communications@cepheid.com