“I am pleased to join Specific’s Scientific Advisory Board at this exciting stage, when the Company’s rapid susceptibility testing product is being introduced across Europe and soon in the US,” said Dr. Humphries.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (PRWEB)
July 07, 2021

Specific Diagnostics announces that Vanderbilt Professor Romney M. Humphries has joined its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Humphries is a national leader in antibiotic susceptibility testing, its regulatory approval and clinical application, is the section director of clinical microbiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and for nearly three years was Chief Scientific Officer of Accelerate Diagnostics. Thus Dr. Humphries brings unique academic, industry, and regulatory perspective to Specific as it brings the Reveal rapid antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) system to market in Europe under the CE-IVD registration and commences Reveal’s US clinical trials this summer.

“I am pleased to join Specific’s Scientific Advisory Board at this exciting stage, when the Company’s rapid susceptibility testing product is being introduced across Europe and soon in the US,” said Dr. Humphries. “I am also glad that Vanderbilt will be one of Specific’s US clinical sites, and look forward to working with the excellent and passionate team there as they bring Reveal to the US market.”

Reveal determines bacterial susceptibility to antimicrobial drugs in an average of 5 hours, allowing same-shift adjustment of treatment, saving lives while reducing costs and improving the utilization of antibiotics. Reveal is already on-market in Europe under CE-IVD registration, and upon clearance Reveal will be only the second Rapid AST platform approved for use in the United States.

While rapid identification (ID) instrumentation for blood stream infection is widely used in US, clinicians wait 2 days to receive the AST results required to identify the correct antibiotic therapy, which the ID result alone does not determine. This delay results in overuse of costly broad spectrum, empiric antibiotic therapy. Same-day AST results enable either timely de-escalation to a focused and lower-cost therapy, preventing disruption of the microbiome, or immediate escalation to an effective drug in the increasingly prevalent case where multi drug resistant (MDR) infection is present, saving a life.

Reveal’s cost, throughput, menu, and footprint are all suited to wide-spread adoption. Modular system design ensures no single point of failure, 100% uptime, and incremental adoption by hospitals of any size. The unique Reveal Dashboard™ provides the lab easy-to-use realtime tools to monitor trends of infection and resistance.

“I could not be more gratified that Romney will join our distinguished US Scientific Advisory Board,” said Dr. Paul A. Rhodes, Specific’s CEO. “She has extraordinarily deep practical knowledge of antibiotic susceptibility testing, its regulatory consideration, and application in the clinic, while bringing a seasoned vendor perspective as well. We have an important mission, bringing rapid, easy-to-use and affordable susceptibility testing to US microbiology laboratories, and her insights and guidance will be highly valued as we oversee US clinical validation of Reveal in the coming months.”

About Specific

Specific Diagnostics has developed in vitro diagnostic systems based upon a unique, patented metabolomic signature technology that enables rapid detection and identification of microorganisms as they grow in culture. Its first commercial application applies this fundamental new capability to the rapid determination of antimicrobial susceptibility directly from positive blood cultures, as well as isolate dilutions. Specific is based in San Jose, CA.

For press inquiries, please contact: press@specificdx.com

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