HP Delivers Innovations to Public Health with New CDC Pilot Program

HP announced its participation in a pilot program run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that aims to accelerate the testing of new antibiotics designed to fight antimicrobial resistant bacteria. The pilot uses HP technology to “print” pharmaceutical samples. As part of the pilot, CDC will deploy new HP D300e Digital Dispenser BioPrinters to four regional labs in the Antibiotic Resistance (AR) Lab Network, to develop antimicrobial susceptibility test methods for new drugs. For the first time, regional labs will be able to conduct rapid susceptibility testing for health departments and hospitals nationwide.

“Bacteria continuously develop new ways to resist antibiotics—once a drug is approved for use, the countdown begins until resistance emerges. In fact, resistance has even been detected before FDA approval,” said Jean Patel, PH.D. D (ABMM), Science Team Lead, Antibiotic Resistance Coordination and Strategy Unit at CDC. “To save lives and protect people, it is vital to make technology accessible to hospital labs nationwide. We hope this pilot will help ensure our newest drugs last longer and put gold-standard lab results in healthcare providers’ hands faster.”

Antimicrobial resistance is an international public health issue. New antibiotics for resistant bacteria can help save lives, but hospitals often do not have access to antimicrobial susceptibility testing to know if the new drug might be effective.  The HP printer helps to speed up testing availability at the local level by “printing” the gold standard test plates in a few minutes. When testing is not available, new drugs can be either overutilized, contributing to antimicrobial resistance, underutilized, not helping patients in need, or misutilized, which can lead to side effects or prolonged treatment.

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