Van dagen naar één uur: ShanX Medical versnelt antibioticadiagnostiek
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are among the greatest threats to global health. In 2019, they were directly responsible for an estimated 1.27 million deaths worldwide. Yet when a bacterial infection is suspected, doctors often have to start treatment before the lab can confirm which antibiotic will work. In Eindhoven, ShanX MedTech is working on a system designed to reduce that wait time to one hour.
The dilemma is urgent. The patient needs care now, but the lab doesn’t provide a definitive answer until days later. In that crucial interim period, antibiotics are prescribed based on guesswork, with risks of inappropriate treatment, higher healthcare costs, and increasing resistance.
“Red Bull for bacteria,” is how founder Dr. Sophia Shanko describes her solution. Inside the ShanX cartridge, bacteria receive exactly the energy boost they need to become metabolically active at lightning speed. The system doesn’t wait for them to visibly grow but instead measures how their metabolism reacts to different antibiotics. Using fluorescence, the system detects changes in the bacteria’s environment. “If evidence is available at the time of prescribing, it leads to better and more personalized outcomes for the patient,” says Shanko.
A personal motivation
For Shanko, this sense of urgency is not an abstract concept. She founded ShanX in 2019, just before the coronavirus pandemic broke out. Her motivation was personal. Her mother contracted a serious bacterial infection following heart surgery in Greece. The operation itself had been successful, but things went wrong afterwards. A bacterium from the Intensive Care Unit had affected her lungs. She could no longer breathe, as her lungs were filling with fluid.
Shanko witnessed first-hand how quickly an infection can spiral out of control and how powerless one feels when the right information isn’t immediately available. “I saw my mother drowning, right before my eyes.” Her mother eventually recovered, but the experience changed everything.
As an engineer, she saw above all the gap between technological progress and a healthcare process that, at a crucial moment, was still dependent on waiting times. “Everything in the world has moved forward, from the automotive sector to AI,” she says. “But the way clinical microbiology is carried out is essentially still the same as it was 75 years ago. There are good reasons for this, but for some applications, diagnostics need to be faster and closer to the treatment decision.”
That experience marked the beginning of ShanX. She framed it as a technical and medical question: why is the information doctors need not yet available at the most critical moment?
Why the lab needs time and what that costs
If a doctor suspects a bacterial infection, a patient sample (urine, blood or tissue) is sent to a clinical microbiology laboratory. There, a series of steps takes place: culture, incubation, assessment, identification and then a test to determine which antibiotics the bacteria are sensitive to.
“At least two overnight procedures take place before you receive the results,” explains Shanko. This is not due to a lack of expertise. Laboratories carry out high-quality work. But the methods available simply take time. Bacteria need to grow, and the analyses follow one after the other, step by step. Meanwhile, the doctor already has to make a decision.
This can mean that a patient is prescribed an antibiotic that later turns out not to be the most suitable. The treatment then has to be adjusted as soon as the results come in. It is precisely the first few days of an infection that are critical. Complications can arise, patients become more ill and the pressure on the healthcare system increases.
Bacterial infections are no exception. Worldwide, it is estimated that one in ten people suffer from a bacterial infection each year for which antibiotics are prescribed. Furthermore, this issue relates to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which the WHO identifies as one of the greatest threats to global health. A large-scale study in *The Lancet* estimated that bacterial infections were responsible for nearly five million deaths worldwide in 2019, of which 1.27 million were directly attributable to resistant bacteria. The more frequently antibiotics are used unnecessarily or incorrectly, the greater the risk that bacteria will become resistant.
ShanX’s ambition therefore extends beyond speed alone. The company aims to make evidence immediately available, at the very moment an antibiotic is selected.
A mini-lab that thinks in parallel
ShanX’s first product focuses on urinary tract infections; one of the most common bacterial infections worldwide. The company ultimately aims to develop a platform for various bacterial infections, but is starting with a single, clear application.
For the user, the process must be simple. Urine is placed in a cartridge, the cartridge goes into the analyser, and the results are available within an hour. “Super simple,” says Shanko. “You insert the cartridge into the analyser and carry on with your work.”
Behind that simplicity lies complex engineering. The cartridge contains several compartments, each with its own function. ShanX aims to combine the steps that take place sequentially in the laboratory into a single small system, running in parallel.
This is a key distinction. ShanX is not simply replicating the existing laboratory process in a smaller device. The company is redesigning the process: making it more compact, faster and closer to both the clinical decision-making moment and the patient.
Seeing what bacteria are up to
At the heart of the technology lies a new chemical approach: an enriched nutrient formula and fluorescent chemical sensors that respond to changes in the bacteria’s environment.
“We want the bacteria to be as happy as possible,” explains Shanko. “Because when they’re happy, they start to metabolise and alter their environment. That’s what we measure.”
The system doesn’t wait for visible growth, but reads earlier signals: metabolic activity and response to antibiotics. “We’re not looking at bacteria in the traditional sense of growth or multiplication,” says Shanko. “We look ahead to that moment. We can see what they’re planning to do before they actually start.” This brings the measurement point forward, allowing information that would normally only be available days later to reach the doctor much more quickly – ideally within an hour.
Where ShanX stands today
ShanX has now moved beyond the stage of a laboratory concept. With a recent funding round of €24 million, the company is in the pre-approval phase. Since its foundation, ShanX has developed the technology behind the system, built systems and conducted clinical feasibility studies. “That was what really gave us the confidence to think: we’ve got something. Something that works,” says Shanko.
That complexity requires in-depth expertise. ShanX began with Shanko and Dr Ardjan van der Linden, Chief Scientific Officer and the scientific driving force behind the microbiology and chemistry. The in-house team now comprises twenty people with an average age of forty-eight. “They are experts,” says Shanko. “Experienced people who consciously chose to take on this challenge. We are not a typical start-up that relies on early-career talent.”
Brainport: where the ecosystem makes a difference
The Brainport environment is particularly important at this stage. A MedTech company seeking to bring complex diagnostic technology to the healthcare sector needs more than just a good idea. It requires clinical partners, experienced engineers, funding and a network that opens doors internationally.
From the outset, the Eindhoven-based company worked closely with TU/e. Projects are now underway with the Catharina Hospital and the Máxima Medical Centre. In addition, the technology has been tested using patient samples at Erasmus MC and in GP practices in Brabant.
BOM is also part of the story: as an investor and as a development agency that opens doors to regional, national and international partners.
For Shanko, Brainport is not a random choice of location. The company systematically evaluated other regions in the Netherlands and beyond based on criteria such as access to clinical partners, openness to innovation, willingness to collaborate with start-ups, talent and accessibility for the team. Following that rational assessment, ShanX chose to remain in Brainport.
Moreover, the network facilitates international connections, for example with American clinical partners. “I know who to turn to if I need a contact at an American hospital,” says Shanko. “A network like that is important.”
From research at TU/e and collaboration with clinical partners to high-tech hardware development, funding and international contacts: it is precisely this combination that is driving ShanX forward.
A new standard
Ultimately, ShanX wants to change more than just the speed of a test. The company wants to challenge the standard itself: evidence first, then antibiotics. That ambition is global.
“In ten years’ time, we want to have changed the standards,” says Shanko. “That doctors need evidence before they prescribe antibiotics.” She laughs. “And that later on, at a barbecue with our grandchildren, we’ll say: you know, in my day we were given antibiotics almost as if they were a snack. Not anymore. And that’s thanks to us.”