As hospital sequencing hits inflection point, Next Gen Diagnostics (NGD) has announced that it will spin off its Infection Prevention division into a standalone company, NGD Infection Prevention, effective January 1. 

 

The new company will focus exclusively on deploying real-time genomic transmission detection in US hospitals, a move that reflects growing recognition that sequencing has become a practical and powerful tool to detect and stop the spread of infections inside healthcare facilities.

 

The decision comes as hospitals face mounting financial and human costs from infections that often go undetected by traditional surveillance methods. Advances in low-cost sequencing and automated bioinformatics have pushed the field out of the lab and into real-world clinical use.

 

"The field has reached a turning point," said Dr Paul A Rhodes, CEO. "The capabilities required to enable broad adoption of sequence-based transmission detection - low cost and highly automated sequencing and bioinformatics - have come together just as it has become widely recognized that most of the transmission occurring in hospitals is missed by existing methods. 

 

"There is a now a practical way to implement this service in hospitals, and we are deploying the first systems, both in the US and Israel."

 

A growing body of peer-reviewed research has shown that the majority of hospital-based transmission goes unnoticed, even in facilities with experienced infection prevention teams and in settings long considered low risk, such as neonatal intensive care units. More recent studies have gone further, demonstrating that sequencing-based detection can directly drive effective interventions that stop outbreaks before they escalate.

 

"We'll have an announcement in the new year in concert with a publication being readied for submission that quantifies the impact sequence-based detection can have in a hospital with a high degree of antibiotic resistant infection, not only reductions in average length-of-stay but also likely preventions of adverse human outcome including mortality," commented Samantha Kahn, Director of Strategic Partnerships for NGD Infection Prevention.

 

NGD says the spin-off is designed to accelerate adoption by allowing the new company to focus entirely on customer engagement, deployment, and support—challenges that differ from technology development but are critical for scaling nationwide.

 

"NGD Infection Prevention was formed to scale the delivery of sequence-based transmission detection," explains Dr Rhodes. "The challenge is no longer technology development, but now communication with customers, successful deployment, and exemplary support, all deliverable at a scale appropriate to provide service to any of the 7,300 hospitals, 16,000 nursing homes, and 7,000 dialysis centers in the United States. 

 

"The financial savings, reduction of average length-of-stay, and avoidance of adverse patient events are so compelling that it is only a matter of time before this practice is not only avidly encouraged and reimbursed by payers, but required or incentivized by regulators as they recognize there is a practical way to prevent currently undetected transmission. NGD Infection Prevention was formed to meet this need."