Pharmacolog and AcouSort sign letter of intent to investigate integration of blood separation technology

Pharmacolog AB and Lund-based AcouSort AB has signed a letter of intent concerning a long-term collaboration focused on investigating the potential of integrating AcouSort’s technology in Pharmacolog’s products. The aim is that the collaboration will result in the development of a novel product for determination of antibiotic concentration in blood from critically ill patients.

Pharmacolog has during the last two years led a development project together with the institution for surgical sciences and the institution for medical sciences at Uppsala University. The project concerns the development of methods and technology for point-of-care measurements of antibiotic concentration in blood from patients undergoing treatment for severe infections. Pharmacolog’s measurement technology requires access to blood plasma. By using AcouSort’s technology, blood-plasma separation can be integrated directly into a point-of-care device. With AcouSort’s technology, manual handling steps are minimized, and the output plasma samples are of higher quality compared to the standard centrifugation method.

During early spring, AcouSort has performed proof-of-principle studies together with Pharmacolog. The goal has been to investigate if AcouSort’s technology for blood-plasma separation is suitable to combine with Pharmacolog’s measurement technology, to enable direct measurement of antibiotic concentration in the plasma fraction of blood samples. The preliminary results have been very positive, showing that the plasma generated by AcouSort’s acoustic separation technology provides a better and more stable sample quality compared to other methods. This is crucial for the accuracy of Pharmacolog’s measurement technology. 

The two companies will now work together to potentially adapt and integrate the AcouPlasma technology into Pharmacolog’s future device for determining antibiotic concentration in blood in a point-of-care environment.

Mats Högberg, CEO of Pharmacolog comments: “What AcouSort has developed is somewhat revolutionizing: Automatically fractionating the different components of blood using ultrasound. After evaluating quite a few different and relatively complicated separation methods, it was very satisfying to observe how smooth our specifications were met using AcouSort’s separation technology. We are now planning to accelerate the development work for our antibiotics testing project and even increase the number of clinical partners.”

Torsten Freltoft, CEO of AcouSort comments: “We are very excited for this new collaboration and we see great potential in combining our core technology with Pharmacolog’s technology for spectrophotometric analysis of blood plasma samples to benefit severely ill patients. As shown in the initial studies, our technology provides superior quality plasma in an automated and integration-friendly way. More and more life science companies are discovering that our technology can solve some of their core problems, allowing them to develop next generation of point-of-care devices and analytical instruments. This has been our vision all along, and it’s very exciting to see this development."

For more information contact:

Mats Högberg, CEO

Email: mats.hogberg@pharmacolog.com
Phone: +46 70-546 50 21

This information is insider information that Pharmacolog AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication through the agency of the contact person set out above, on May 3, 2021 at 11:00.

About Pharmacolog AB

Pharmacolog is specialized in developing systems and solutions for more effective and safer use of intravenous drugs. The company's first product, DrugLog®, enables a nurse or pharmacist to quickly and easily verify that an injectable drug has the right identity and concentration. Pharmacolog's long-term vision is an individually optimized medication for each individual patient, considering all available parameters in the control and distribution of the drug. Further information regarding the company is available at www.pharmacolog.com. The company's Certified Adviser is Mangold Fondkommission AB, which can be reached on telephone number +46 8-5030 15 50 or through CA@mangold.se.