Ares Genetics GmbH has received a notification by the European Patent Office (EPO) on the decision to grant the European Patent No. 3 099 813 titled “Genetic Resistance Testing”.
The patent broadly covers biomarkers and biomarker combinations indicating resistance of the pathogen Escherichia coli to numerous classes of antibiotics and the use of such genetic biomarkers and biomarker combinations to predict resistance based on DNA testing.
The patent is the first that was granted from a series of eleven similarly structured patent applications for different pathogen/drug combinations that were originally filed by Siemens and are now owned by Curetis Group Company Ares Genetics after its acquisition of the GEAR database assets from Siemens in September 2016. The GEAR database is the nucleus of Ares Genetics’ ARESdb, an AI-powered database of compiling high-resolution information on the genetics of antimicrobial resistance mechanisms. At present, ARESdb covers the genomes of about 40,000 bacterial strains and susceptibility data for more than 100 different antibiotics.