Curetis N.V. (the "Company" and, together with its subsidiaries, "Curetis"), a developer of next-level molecular diagnostic solutions, today announced that that its wholly owned subsidiary 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.
 
Ares Genetics leverages ARESdb for services and products for the DNA-based prediction of antibiotic resistance for partners in public health as well as the diagnostics and pharmaceutical industries. Following the licensing of ARESdb for research use to QIAGEN in February 2019, the global microbiology research community is expected to obtain access to ARESdb via the QIAGEN Microbial Insights AR bioinformatics knowledgebase. According to a recent public communication by QIAGEN, a first release of ARESdb will be made available to QIAGEN’s customers in September 2019 (Ref. 1).
 
“The granting of this key patent by the EPO validates our scalable approach to generate proprietary and truly novel insights into the genetics of antimicrobial resistance mechanisms with ARESdb,” said Dr. Andreas Posch, Managing Director and CEO of Ares Genetics. “The genetic profiles derived from ARESdb allow for unprecedented precision in the molecular prediction of drug response and open the way for precision medicine based on rapid DNA testing in the field of infectious diseases.”
 
ARESdb and the ARES Technology Platform is covered by 19 patent families in various stages of submission, review, and approval, covering biomarkers, bioinformatics methods and algorithms, as well as laboratory workflows. As a whole, they presumably constitute one of the broadest and most systematically structured IP portfolios in the space.