PneumoSIP project aims to be the first fully automated device in the POC market for the fast quantitative aetiological diagnose of Community-Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) also analysing antibiotic resistances to enable the most appropriate treatment for each infected patient. CAP is known to affect about 1/1,000 of the adult population per year, being even higher in the elderly and children populations. It is the fourth case of death in the world, and the leading cause of death in child population under 5 years old. The causal relationship between pathogens and pneumonia has been clearly established, being Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) the main pathogens responsible for CAP in Europe. Antibiotic therapy is the mainstream treatment for CAP, and the appropriate treatment involves starting empiric antibiotics administration within 8 hours of hospital arrival. Given this time constrain, traditional methods for diagnosing the aetiology of CAP have been discarded for CAP guidelines due to the slowness in sample to results. Another complication is that S. pneumoniae is a common colonizer of the nasopharynx (up to 70% of healthy population acts as a host), making the simple detection of the bacteria a useless diagnostic method. Thus, clinicians need rapid and accurate quantitative tests capable of identifying infectious agents and their potential antibiotic resistances. Therefore, PneumoSIP project aims to be a compact Respiratory Infectious Diseases diagnostic device providing fast quantitative identification of pathogens involved in CAP, enabling faster and more specific treatments. PneumoSIP seeks to combine laboratory standard precision with the simplicity required for POC applications. The market for PneumoSIP system is the POC market, concretely the Infectious Disease POC testing segment. The POCT segment was valued at $415.4 million in 2012 where Pneumosip will greatly impact.

Despite significant advances in sanitation and medicine, infectious diseases still annually claim in excess of 15 million lives. Community acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Pneumonia is also the leading cause of death in children worldwide. It kills an estimated 1.6 million children under the age of five every year, about 25% of all pediatric deaths around the world – more than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined . In the EU about 3.3 million cases are reported annually with hospitalization rates ranging from 20–50%, meaning that there are about 1 million hospital admissions for CAP per year in the EU . In addition, the growing resistance to antibiotic treatments (>10% in EU), makes pathogen identification and streamlining of antibiotic treatment even more important. AlphaSIP aims the development of a cost-effective solution for the rapid diagnostic of pneumonia. Infectious diseases represent the largest segment of the In-Vitro Molecular Diagnostics Market with nearly 50%. It is a big market that is growing fast: $ 5 B with a 14% CAGR. The Point-of-Care Molecular Diagnostics devices market for infectious diseases based on microfluidics has a size of approximately 900 M $ with an even higher growth rate . PneumoSIP product line is expected to become the main source of growth for the company in the next 5 years. The H2020 SME instrument phase I feasibility study has four main objectives: - To verify with final users (physicians and lab technicians) the features of the problem. - To validate and close the first specifications of the product with final users and customers. - To confirm with updated market studies the future Pn