InsightRX pens antibiotic deal for its precision dosing software

A cloud-based system that makes drug dosing more personalised and precise – developed by InsightRX – is to be deployed across hospitals and other clinical sites in the US.

The San Francisco-based startup has signed a deal with healthcare group Premier that will see its  InsightRX Nova software used at patients’ bedsides to make sure they receive the correct dose of vancomycin and other antibiotics.

The Nova software integrates with hospital electronic health records and uses real-world, patient-specific data and artificial intelligence (AI) to tailor medicine doses to a patient’s pharmacological profile.

The new partnership means InsightRX will be able to tap into a network of more than 1,100 hospitals that use Premier’s TheraDoc clinical surveillance software suite.

Antibiotics such as vancomycin require careful monitoring and dosing regimens that take into account patient-specific factors impacted by the drug’s pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, say the two partners.

Administering these medications can be complex and can lead to serious side effects, such as acute kidney injury, they suggest, and applying the software combination should make it easier for clinicians to identify at-risk patients and determine safe dosing levels.

Guidelines suggest that patients receiving vancomycin should be monitored carefully to avoid under-dosing that can lead to treatment failure and encourage antimicrobial resistance (AMR), as well as to minimise the risk of side effects, which can be a particular problem in patients with kidney problems.

InsightRX Nova is designed to help clinicians comply with new treatment guidelines from  the American Society of Hospital Pharmacists (ASHP), Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), Paediatric Infectious Disease Society (PIDS) and Society of Infectious Disease Pharmacists (SIDP), which were released for public comment in June.

“The recommendations provided in the upcoming ASHP, IDSA, PIDS and SIDP vancomycin dosing and monitoring guidelines are intended to assist clinicians in optimizing treatment in adult and paediatric patients,” said Dr Michael Rybak or Wayne State University, the primary author of the guidelines.

 “Based on extensive research, determining an optimal vancomycin dose using a Bayesian-derived method is the most precise way to improve treatment efficacy, while minimising the chances of kidney toxicity,” he added.

Precise use of vancomycin is particularly important as it is often a list-line antibiotic options for serious multidrug-resistant (MDR) infections.

InsightRX – which was founded in 2015 and raised $10 million in a first-round financing in September – says Nova has been applied to around 100 therapeutic areas to date, including oncology and infectious diseases.