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SAN DIEGO, Aug. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Nanogen, Inc. (Nasdaq: NGEN), developer of advanced diagnostic products, announced today that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded the company a grant in the amount of $2.5 million over the next five years for a research project to develop a prototype fully integrated diagnostic system for clinical labs to identify infectious agents that cause sepsis and community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). The grant will enable Nanogen to develop improved molecular biological methods, miniaturize those methods, and demonstrate the performance of this new molecular diagnostic approach to diagnose sepsis and CAP in a hospital laboratory setting.
Full laboratory work-ups to specifically determine the cause of sepsis or pneumonia from the large number of possible disease-causing bacterial and viral agents is time consuming and expensive. In addition, broad spectrum antibiotics, which may not effectively treat patients, are often administered while awaiting test results. Nanogen will be using its proprietary chemistry and multiplex detection technologies and employing the Medical College of Wisconsin's technologies and clinical and microbiological expertise. The goal of this partnership is to develop an automated diagnostic system that would be able to rapidly detect a number of bacteria and viruses that cause sepsis and pneumonia in patients.
"In previous government grant programs, Nanogen greatly reduced the size of its instrument and integrated essential biological sample preparation, amplification and detection technologies to design a sample-to-answer diagnostic system," said Howard C. Birndorf, Nanogen's chairman of the board and CEO. "This NIAID/NIH research program will further the design of a sophisticated prototype assay and instrument system and sepsis and pneumonia detection panels to help physicians expedite test results in the hospital lab and make better treatment decisions."
Mortality from sepsis can range from 28 to 50%. In addition, pneumonia remains the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S. Estimates of the incidence of CAP range from 4 to 5 million cases per year. Early identification and appropriate treatment of the underlying cause of sepsis and pneumonia will improve patient outcomes.
About Nanogen, Inc.
Nanogen's advanced diagnostics provide researchers, clinicians, physicians and patients worldwide with improved methods and tests that can predict, diagnose and ultimately help treat disease. Nanogen's products include real-time PCR reagents, the NanoChip(R) Molecular Biology Workstation platform for molecular diagnostic applications and its line of rapid point-of-care diagnostic tests. Nanogen's ten years of pioneering research involving nanotechnology may also have future applications in medical diagnostics, biowarfare and other industries. For additional information please visit Nanogen's website at www.nanogen.com.
Forward-Looking Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements, including whether Nanogen will successfully design a prototype diagnostic system as part of a NIH research program, patents owned or licensed by Nanogen will be developed into products, whether the patents owned by Nanogen offer any protection against competitors with competing technologies, whether products under development can be successfully developed and commercialized, whether results reported by our customers or partners can be identically replicated, whether annual grants will be renewed for the entire five year term, and other risks and uncertainties discussed under the caption "Factors That May Affect Results" and elsewhere in Nanogen's Form 10-K or Form 10-Q most recently filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. Nanogen disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements. |
