From EIC Accelerator Grant to Closure: GenoSmart's Superbug Test

GenoSmart Ltd, a small Israeli diagnostics company, won an EU grant in the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2 round of 9 January 2019 to make a portable device that detects carbapenem-resistant bacteria, the "superbugs" that resist almost every antibiotic, in under 30 minutes. The project, MMEM (Miniaturized Matrixed Enthalpy Meter), received an EU contribution of €2,315,639 towards a total cost of €3,308,056 and ran from 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2021, according to CORDIS. The plan was to make the device "ready for market launch in Europe", run a European clinical study and start sales in 2020, first in Israel.

It did not get there. The company's own final report on CORDIS says the heat sensor at the core of the device "did not meet the required diagnostic sensitivity" for detecting the resistance genes in a diagnostic setting. GenoSmart ceased operating in November 2024, according to the startup databases Startupim and Startup Nation Central, and the Israeli company register now lists it as voluntarily liquidated ("מחוסלת מרצון"), according to the Israeli Corporations Authority data on data.gov.il and KYC Israel.

A Liquidated Company and a Domain for Sale

The open data of the Israeli Corporations Authority, published on data.gov.il, records GenoSmart Ltd as a private company incorporated on 26 March 2007, registered at 10 Guglielmo Marconi Street in Haifa, with the status "voluntarily liquidated" and 2022 as the last year for which it filed an annual report. KYC Israel, which republishes the register, shows the same status, incorporation date and last report year. The date on which the liquidation began or ended is not in either source and could not be verified.

Both Startupim and Startup Nation Central record that the company ceased to operate in November 2024. Not every database has caught up: CB Insights still shows it as alive and Bouncewatch lists it as active with six employees. The company's own website, genosmart.com, now forwards to a domain-for-sale page when checked on 7 October 2026. No announcement of the closure by the company, and no buyer for its technology or patents, could be found.

The Technology: Listening for the Heat of DNA Binding

When two complementary strands of DNA bind, a process called hybridization, they release a tiny amount of heat. GenoSmart's idea was to measure that heat directly. A pyroelectric sensor, a material that produces an electric signal when its temperature changes, carries a DNA probe for the gene being sought; if the patient sample contains the matching gene, the binding releases heat, which the sensor turns into a signal, the CORDIS project summary explains. The target was carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), gut bacteria that resist the carbapenem class of antibiotics; the project summary says a fast result lets doctors isolate a carrier at once.

The approach goes back further than the company. A European patent titled "Versatile thermal detection", for detecting heat generated by molecular interactions such as DNA hybridization, was granted on 22 August 2012 with Genosmart Ltd., then of Reut, as proprietor and Amots Osri as inventor; it claims priority from a US filing of 13 December 2006 and was filed internationally as PCT/IL2007/001552, according to the European Patent Office. A US patent with the same title, US 9,212,389, is on file at the USPTO. Whether either patent is still in force, or was sold, could not be verified.

The selling point against established methods was speed and independence from a laboratory. The CORDIS summary contrasts the device with "currently available molecular detection techniques" that depend on "labs and complicated facilities" and "time-consuming laboratory analysis". GenoSmart said its device would be a self-contained "sample-to-result" box that needs no external facility and gives "clear and simple results in less than 30 minutes", according to its CORDIS report. Those were design goals; no independent test of the device has been published.

What the EU Paid For, and What the Final Report Admits

GenoSmart appears in the European Commission's list of EIC SME Instrument Phase 2 winners under the January 2019 cut-off, with MMEM as its project and Hod Hasharon as its city; CORDIS and the register give Haifa, and the 2012 patent gave Reut. The Commission list names no partner company for the project, and CORDIS shows GenoSmart as the sole participant. The grant agreement was signed on 26 June 2019, according to CORDIS.

The device had two parts. The first, an Automatic Nucleic Acid Extractor (ANAE), takes a raw bacterial sample in a disposable cassette and turns it into short, clean DNA fragments; the second, the enthalpy meter, was to detect the resistance gene in them. The final periodic report, covering July 2020 to June 2021, says both units were integrated into "one fully automated, seamless, functional sample-to-result device", and that the extractor isolated the target DNA from crude bacterial samples within 15 minutes. It then states the failure plainly:

The report adds that the company carried out a bioinformatics survey of the resistance genes most common in Europe and "performed regulatory and validation steps for receiving CE mark". It does not report a European clinical study, a CE mark or a first sale. The only public deliverable on the CORDIS results page is a document titled "ISO13485:2016", the quality-management standard for medical device makers; its content could not be retrieved, and no ISO 13485 certificate for GenoSmart could be found elsewhere. The project ended on schedule on 30 June 2021.

1. CRE detection in under 30 minutesNot achievedSensor short of diagnostic sensitivity, per the final report.
2. Integrated sample-to-result devicePartlyPrototype integrated; the extraction unit worked, detection did not.
3. European clinical validation studyNot achievedNo study reported on CORDIS or elsewhere.
4. CE markNot achievedOnly "regulatory and validation steps" reported.
5. Sales from 2020, first in IsraelNot achievedNo customer or sale announced.
6. 15% of the CRE diagnosis market in 7 yearsNot achievedCompany ceased operating in November 2024.

After the Grant: An Extraction Robot Without a Market

The final report recast the surviving half of the device as a product of its own. GenoSmart wrote that it had developed the extractor into "a standalone, universal protocol controller", a thermocycler-sized machine able to run "hundreds of independent molecular and biochemical lab procedures", from DNA preparation to CRISPR reactions, with liquid handling, magnetic separation, sonication and heating built in, according to CORDIS. The company's later database profiles on Startupim and Bouncewatch list two products: the enthalpy meter and this Automated Nucleic Acid Extraction (ANAE) system.

No sale, distributor, customer, paper or funding round for either product could be found. The databases disagree about the company's money: Startupim puts total funding at $3.9 million, all from an EU Horizon 2020 grant dated September 2020, while CB Insights lists only a Horizon 2020 grant without an amount. CORDIS records one EU project for the company, with a grant of €2,315,639 signed in June 2019, which does not match Startupim's figure or date. The award was grant only, so it included no EIC equity, and GenoSmart could not be found among the companies of the EIC Fund. Israeli private companies do not publish their accounts, so revenue, losses and staff numbers are not public.

A Crowded Round

The January 2019 cut-off drew 1,752 proposals, and Israel sent 136 of them, the third-largest number after Spain and Italy, according to madri+d, which reported the Commission's figures; around 135 companies were to be interviewed in Brussels, about half of which would be funded. GenoSmart was one of the Israeli companies on the Commission's winners list for that round, alongside companies such as Elminda, Regentis Biomaterials and OptiqGain.

Why Europe Funded It

Antibiotic resistance is one of the EU's standing health priorities. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control estimates that 33,000 people die every year in the EU and European Economic Area from infections with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the figure GenoSmart's own report quoted. The Commission runs a One Health action plan against resistance, described on its public health pages, and the Council Recommendation of June 2023 on stepping up EU action against antimicrobial resistance asks the Commission to promote the development of "diagnostics and vaccines against resistant pathogens". A fast bedside test that tells a hospital within minutes whether to isolate a patient fits that agenda squarely. The case for the technology was sound; the sensor was the problem.

The Verdict

Credit is due for candour: the company's final report names the technical failure in plain words. But the grant was meant to bring a diagnostic to market, and five years after the project ended there is no product, no customer and no company. This article is based on public records and published statements, linked throughout; GenoSmart's former management was not asked for comment.