Rapid test for sepsis developed at UBC set for clinical trials

A potentially life-saving sepsis diagnostic test based on UBC research took a major step toward clinical use today, with Canada’s Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) announcing the spin-off of Sepset Biosciences.

The company’s rapid diagnostic test, based on work by UBC microbiologist Robert Hancock, will enable healthcare professionals to provide earlier and more targeted treatment of sepsis.

“Our blood-based test works by detecting, at the time a patient enters the hospital, a unique biomarker signature based on the body’s immune response rather than the presence of a pathogen,” says Hancock. “The results of initial clinical studies show this to be a very promising approach so we are now in the process of advancing to larger multi-centre, multi-country trials.”

Sepsis—the body’s toxic response to infection—is more common than heart attack and claims more lives than any cancer. It causes the hospitalization of more than 18 million people around the world every year, including 30,000 Canadians. Approximately one in three of these patients will die due to complications related to severe sepsis.

Current methods to diagnose sepsis take more than 24 hours after a patient enters the emergency ward – by which time, the patient may already be well on their way towards tissue damage, organ failure, and death. For every three-hour delay in diagnosis, the rate of mortality and morbidity grows by almost 25 per cent.

The new test identifies a gene signature associated with the eventual diagnosis of sepsis and subsequent organ failure. It takes as little as one hour, and could identify 96 per cent of patients who were at the very early stages of sepsis.

“Clinicians desperately need a more accurate and rapid tool to diagnose sepsis,” says John Boyd, an emergency room physician at Vancouver’s St. Paul’s Hospital and advisor to Sepset. “The signs and symptoms of sepsis are highly variable. This test will help physicians diagnose the infection sooner, which is critical to effective treatment and better patient outcomes.”

Gordon McCauley, Interim President and CEO of CDRD adds, “By bringing together Dr. Hancock’s leading scientific expertise and CDRD’s commercialization and business development capabilities, we have been able to accelerate the advancement of this technology along the commercial pathway, and create an exciting new Canadian life sciences company focused on an area of major unmet medical need.”