Commission awards first funding to US firm in major consortium

The European Commission has announced that Horizon 2020 has awarded funding to an American company to work with European and Canadian collaborators on validating a highly sensitive diagnostic test and promising treatment for Ebola.

Disease detection and evaluation firm Metabiota will receive the grant to help undertake research aimed at decreasing the number of deaths and preventing further spread of the Ebola virus. The international consortium is led by the Institut de recherche pour le développement, the French research governmental institution, and academic institutions involved in the project are located in Israel, Italy and Canada.

Speaking about the award, Mary Guttieri, executive vice president of Metabiota, said: “The Commission is embarking upon an important initiative in the fight against Ebola, and we are honoured to be among the first US companies to be selected to join the team of esteemed collaborators.”

Metabiota, based in San Francisco, California, will contribute in-country field experience to help improve diagnostics and develop a highly promising antibody treatment, which has been successfully used for other infectious diseases validated by the Commission and World Health Organization. As the only in-country laboratory capable of performing the most comprehensive and thorough surveillance and testing, the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation-Metabiota lab became the reference laboratory for EVD diagnostics in the country and plays a key role in responding to the worst ever Ebola epidemic.