Karius® Partners with Capstone Health Alliance to Widen Patient Access to Liquid Biopsy Test for Infectious Diseases

The new partnership between Capstone Health Alliance and Karius provides more patients with access to the innovative the Karius Test® technology and helps improve the diagnosis of infections

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Karius®, the world leader in liquid biopsy for infectious diseases, today announced a partnership with Capstone Health Alliance, a group purchasing organization focused on supply chain savings in hospitals and other organizations, to streamline patient access to the Karius Test®. The Karius Test is a lab-developed test that can non-invasively and rapidly detect more than 1,000 pathogens throughout the body from a single blood sample. Through the partnership, doctors at over 265 Capstone member hospitals across the U.S. can now more easily order the Karius Test for patients harboring hard-to-diagnose infections.

Capstone and Karius are focused on expanding access to quality medical care – especially for patients at high risk, such as those with compromised immune systems. There will be nearly 3 million hospitalizations this year in the U.S. alone from infections in the immunocompromised.¹ For these patients, infections can be particularly dangerous, and targeted early treatment is key to a positive clinical outcome.

"We are thrilled to partner with Capstone Health Alliance to accelerate access for patients to our metagenomic infectious disease test," said Brad Perkins, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Karius. "With better access to the Karius Test, we're excited for the opportunity to get fast, accurate tools into the hands of clinicians to empower earlier diagnosis and treatment of potentially life-threatening infectious diseases."

The partnership will broaden institutional access to microbial cell-free metagenomics technology used by the Karius Test, which is currently being utilized across institutions nationwide, including children's hospitals and transplant centers. Clinical evidence has demonstrated that the Karius Test helps clinicians diagnose bloodstream² and deep-seated infections.^{3 4}

"The Karius Test is a much-needed addition to a doctors' toolkit against infectious disease, especially now that several potentially deadly infections with overlapping symptoms are making a comeback," said Robin Lincoln, Capstone's Chief Contracting Officer. "Capstone can provide easier access to this platform to over 265 hospitals representing 36,000 licensed beds in our alliance. We are pleased to partner with such a reputable company as Karius to work together to broaden the awareness of this potentially life-saving test option."

As noted in New York Times and GenomeWeb, facilities within the Capstone network have already begun using the Karius Test to identify rare infections including peritoneal tuberculosis and tularemia, as well as species of Leptospira and Nocardia.

In addition, this week at the American Society of Microbiology Microbe 2022 Meeting, Karius will be presenting a data synthesis of pathogens detected in 15,165 patients, which represents the largest testing cohort of patients in which plasma microbial cell-free DNA has been identified and quantified.

Karius is a life sciences company focused on generating genomic insights for infectious diseases with a non-invasive blood test that helps clinicians make rapid treatment decisions. By mapping each patient's microbial landscape from a single blood draw, Karius envisions a world where infectious disease is no longer a major threat to human health. 

For more information, visit www.kariusdx.com and follow @KariusInc on Twitter.

Capstone Health Alliance is a group purchasing alliance of healthcare and non-healthcare members that delivers cost savings through the power of aggregation and collaboration. Based in Fletcher, North Carolina, Capstone's membership includes 265 hospitals representing more than 100 health systems across 24 states and represents over $10 billion in acute care supply chain spending. Capstone also represents over 25,000 non-acute and business & industry members. Capstone delivers quantifiable savings and actionable data that enable better purchasing decisions for our members. In addition to cost savings initiatives, Capstone members collaborate to share best practices all with the intent of improving cost, quality and outcomes.

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¹Claims-based analysis from Clarify Health, 2021
²Armstrong A., et al. Pediatr Blood Cancer. 2019;66(7):e27734. 
³Hong D., et al. Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis. 2018;92(3):210-213.
⁴Rossoff, et al. Open Forum Infect Di. 2019;6(8):ofz327.

SOURCE Karius