Everyone knows the saying "time is money." But in hospitals time is worth even more.
Austin biotech startup Pattern Bioscience is tightly focused on saving physicians time as it develops its early-stage bacterial culture testing technology.
The company's rapid bacteria identification platform seeks to dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes for physicians to grow bacteria on a culture collected from a patient.
Currently, it takes two to four days for such cultures to grow enough bacteria for doctors to identify it and prescribe a targeted antibiotic. Often, doctors prescribe a general dose of antibiotics to patients in hopes of killing off whatever is ailing them -- but that can lead to drug resistant bacterias and mess up patients' bacterial balance.
Pattern Bioscience, perviously known as Klaris Diagnostics, has developed methods to cut that bacteria identification time down to about four hours. That means patients get highly-targeted antibiotics faster.
“It can have a huge impact because it reduces that diagnostic uncertainty that physicians have for a few days," Pattern Bioscience VP of Marketing and Business Development Kyle Fieleke told Austin Inno.
With some promising research in hand, the company on Tuesday announced it raised $13 million in new funding.
That includes $6.4 million in Series B funding, led by Dallas-based Omnimed Capital, which also backed Pattern Bioscience's $3.75 million Series A in 2017. The new round also includes $6.8 million in non-dilutive funding from CARB-X, a nonprofit that funds biotech startups. If Pattern can hit its milestones, the company could draw down up to $15.1 million in additional funding from CARB-X.
“It’s really significant," he said. "It could pay for a majority of our development cost.”
Right now, Pattern's Digital Culture product is still in its early stages. But Fieleke said the company plans to double its current team of 14 people within about a year, adding several scientific and engineering positions.
The company is currently working on its alpha prototypes. After additional testing, it hopes to enter clinical trials within a couple years.
Eventually, the product will be sold to hospitals with large intensive care units before expanding into more use cases. It also sees potential in the millions of data points it processes through its testing programs and deep learning programs -- but for now the focus is on its cornerstone product.
Pattern Bioscience is also getting ready to move into new offices at Great Hills Plaza, near the Arboretum in North Austin.
Fieleke said Austin doesn't have a huge biotech scene yet, but he hopes that Pattern can be part of a wave of companies that help grow the local ecosystem.
“I think there are a lot of people who have interest in health care jobs and working on a big problem that’s important for humanity," he said. "But there’s not as big of a focus on that in Austin today."
