Clever Culture takes aim at superbugs<\/p>\n
AI joins the antibiotic resistance fight<\/p>\n
Faster diagnostics open a bigger opportunity<\/p>\n
Antibiotic resistance is usually framed as a drug problem.<\/p>\n
The world needs new antibiotics, the argument goes, because bacteria are getting increasingly good at shrugging off the old ones.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s another front opening up in the fight against superbugs, and it\u2019s considerably less glamorous: the pathology lab.<\/p>\n
The World Health Organization and Japan put that squarely on the agenda in September, bringing together seven Western Pacific countries to strengthen both antimicrobial and clinical diagnostic stewardship.<\/p>\n
The basic idea is pretty simple.<\/p>\n
Get the right test, for the right patient, at the right time, then actually use that information to choose the right treatment.<\/p>\n
Because every time antibiotics are used when they\u2019re not needed, bacteria get another chance to learn the ropes.<\/p>\n
That feeds into the bigger problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), where bacteria and other microbes evolve so the medicines used to treat them stop working.<\/p>\n
WHO estimates AMR could contribute to more than five million deaths<\/a> in the Western Pacific alone between 2020 and 2030.<\/p>\n In other words, fighting superbugs isn’t only about inventing a better antibiotic.<\/p>\n It’s also about getting better at working out what bug you’re dealing with and which drugs will actually kill it.<\/p>\n Researchers are attacking that problem from several directions.<\/p>\n A recently reported Penn State method called STREAM, for example, dramatically cut the time needed to identify bloodstream infections and determine which antibiotics would work to as little as 6.75 hours in a study of 104 positive blood-culture samples.<\/p>\n And that’s where ASX-listed Clever Culture Systems (ASX:CC5)<\/a> becomes interesting.<\/p>\n AI picks up the lab work<\/p>\n Clever Culture’s main piece of kit is APAS Independence, an AI-powered system that images, analyses and interprets agar culture plates.<\/p>\n Basically, microbiologists traditionally spend a lot of time looking at plates and deciding what has grown on them. APAS automates parts of that job.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat our product does is we automate that reading part of the workflow,\u201d CEO Brent Barnes previously told Stockhead.<\/p>\n The system can read and sort up to 200 culture plates an hour and has clinical analysis modules covering urine cultures and infection-control screening, including MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant type of bacteria that can be difficult to treat.<\/p>\n Clever Culture has also developed a Zone Reader that uses AI to measure the clear zones showing whether bacteria are susceptible to particular antibiotics.<\/p>\n The test is pretty simple. Different antibiotics are placed on a culture plate and, if one works, it creates a clear zone around it where the bacteria can\u2019t grow.<\/p>\n That measurement can help assess which antibiotics a bacterium is susceptible to, although Clever Culture currently lists its Zone Reader analysis module as research use only.<\/p>\n The bigger point for AMR is that this kind of testing can show which antibiotics should work, rather than reaching for one and hoping for the best.<\/p>\n Clever Culture says its system can process these plates more than five times faster than doing it manually, while also reducing subjectivity in the measurement process.<\/p>\n APAS is also already FDA-cleared in the US to automatically read culture plates for MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant superbug.<\/p>\n Research from St Vincent\u2019s Hospital Melbourne presented last year also found APAS could save lab time and help automate the reading of urine samples to see which antibiotics are likely to work.<\/p>\n Where CC5 fits in<\/p>\n Clever Culture is now mainly selling APAS to pharmaceutical manufacturers, where it automatically reads monitoring plates used to check that drug-making facilities are clean and free from contamination.<\/p>\n That has already brought in customers including AstraZeneca and other major pharma manufacturers. Its customer base has also included Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb, Novo Nordisk, Boehringer Ingelheim and Thermo Fisher Pharma Services.<\/p>\n But APAS actually started life in clinical microbiology.<\/p>\n Clever Culture\u2019s commercial focus is now on pharma, but its clinical technology is still there.<\/p>\n It can automate the reading of culture plates for things like urine cultures, MRSA screening and zone measurements used in antimicrobial susceptibility testing.<\/p>\n That\u2019s relevant as governments and health bodies put more focus on better diagnostic testing as part of the fight against antibiotic resistance.<\/p>\n Barnes has previously summed up just how much went into developing the technology.<\/p>\n \u201cIt sounds really easy, but we\u2019ve spent (the) best part of 50 plus million dollars developing the technology.\u201d<\/p>\n So Big Pharma remains the main game for Clever Culture.<\/p>\n But with better diagnostic testing becoming part of the wider AMR fight, APAS also gives investors an existing clinical technology to keep an eye on.<\/p>\n Other ASX small caps in this space<\/p>\n There are a couple of other ASX names sitting around the same broader theme.<\/p>\n Lumos Diagnostics (ASX:LDX)<\/a> has FebriDx, a rapid point-of-care test designed to help distinguish bacterial from non-bacterial respiratory infections, potentially helping doctors avoid unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions. It received a US CLIA waiver in March, significantly broadening the settings in which it can be used.<\/p>\n