The Longitude Prize has announced the final stage in its goal to award an £8m ($10.5m) prize for the creation of an affordable, accurate and rapid diagnostic test to help combat antimicrobial-resistant infections.
The test will help to support treatment decisions, reduce overuse of antibiotics and confront the rising issue of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
The Longitude Prize has stated that if the existing criteria of a ‘time to result’ of 30 minutes is not met by September 2022, tests with a ‘time to result’ of 60 minutes or less will be eligible. This is a significant reduction from the current three-day period it takes from test to result and expands the chances for new teams to step forward with a submission for the £8m prize.
AMR poses a critical threat to the world’s population – in 2019, more than 1.2 million people worldwide died as a direct consequence of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. Healthcare leaders have warned that the threat of AMR is a gradually developing pandemic that is killing an estimated 3,500 people per day.
No new antibiotic has been discovered since 1962 for the treatment of Gram-negative bacterial infections, and now testing plays a vital part in reducing AMR through improved infection diagnosis in order to rapidly detect and control resistant infections.
Launched in 2014, The Longitude Prize challenges innovators to create new rapid tests. It is understood that AMR diagnostic tests could save at least 333,000 lives a year, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
Innovators who can create a point-of-care diagnostic test that meets the seven mandatory criteria of the prize will have a chance of winning the £8m prize. Crucially, it must be clear that there is clinical need for the test, with the test itself being rapid, accurate, affordable, safe, accessible and scalable.
50 teams are actively pursuing the Longitude Prize currently and are based in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, Israel, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, India, Turkey and Malaysia.
Sir Patrick Vallance, UK Government chief scientific adviser and Longitude Prize Committee member, said: “As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, I am calling on diagnostic test innovators to apply the enormous advances they have made in tackling COVID-19 to the threat of antibiotic resistance to stave off the scenario of a world without effective antibiotic treatments.”
Innovators wishing to enter a submission have two final chances for review on 31 May and 30 September 2022.