American biotech firm specialized in detecting antibiotic resistance opens headquarters in Catalonia

Accelerate Diagnostics, a biotechnology company based in Tucson (Arizona, United States), has just opened new offices in the UPC Mediterranean Technology Park in Castelldefels, creating 25 new qualified jobs before the year is out.

This investment project will allow them to operate throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and receive support from the Government of Catalonia through Catalonia Trade & Investment (ACCIÓ).

From Catalonia, Accelerate Diagnostics will market its Accelerate Pheno technology in the EMEA region. This new automated system is able to detect a person's resistance to antibiotics in under seven hours from a blood sample, optimizing treatment of serious infectious diseases like sepsis, given the growing rate of microbial resistance and frequency of in-hospital infections.

The American firm, which identifies bacteria and analyzes their susceptibility to antibiotics, hopes to be able to use other types of samples in the future, like respiratory or urine.

At their new offices in Castelldefels they will also coordinate studies on the quality of results from clinical application, in collaboration with several European hospitals and experts in this field. The company says more people die each year around the world from bacterial infections than from breast and prostate cancer combined.

According to executive vice president and head of the EMEA region for Accelerate Diagnostics, Joan Martín, the company has plans to expand in the coming years. "We chose Barcelona because it is the perfect place to attract talent and its infrastructure is ideal as a springboard to Europe, the Middle East and Africa," stressed Martín in a press release by the Government of Catalonia.