MeMed said today that it won a $9.2 million contract from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a branch of the U.S. Dept. of Defense, for its diagnostic platform that distinguishes bacterial infections from viral infections.

The Israel-based company has developed a test to recognize the distinct human immune signatures of both bacterial and viral infections – an important medical distinction since the 2 ailments require different methods of treatment.

“We are excited by this vote of confidence. DTRA’s recognition of our work further positions MeMed as a world leader in immune-based diagnostics of infectious diseases,” CEO Eran Eden said in prepared remarks.  “This joint effort, and our growing collaboration with other international stakeholders from industry and government, will facilitate the global availability of our tests aimed at combating antimicrobial resistance.”

The company’s 1st-gen device, ImmunoXpert, is in use and has been validated in thousands of patients, according to MeMed. The 2nd-gen test involved developing a new point-of-care platform that takes just 15 minutes.

“This collaboration will allow us to expedite completion of our point of care platform program,” CTO Dr. Kfir Oved added. “In addition to allowing measurements of our bacterial versus viral test within minutes, the new platform also opens the way to a variety of rapid multiplex-protein measurements at the point of care with lab-quality precision, which has broad applications.”

“The project will also evaluate and expand our test menu to detect early infections, even at the pre-symptomatic stage of a disease – currently a major challenge in our ability to control infections and epidemics,” VP of scientific affairs Tanya Gottlieb said.