MeMed: The EIC Accelerator Infection Test That Cleared the FDA

When a feverish patient arrives in an emergency department, the doctor often cannot tell whether a bacterium or a virus is to blame, and antibiotics are frequently prescribed just in case. MeMed, founded in Israel in 2009, built a blood test that answers that question by reading the patient's immune response instead of hunting for the pathogen. In the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2 round of 5 June 2019 it won a grant for DECODE, a project the European Commission's list of selected companies described as the "launch and randomized control trial of the first validated bacterial versus viral test". MeMed is the only company listed for the project.

The EU contributed €2,499,999.11 to a total cost of €3,571,427.30, according to CORDIS. The project started on 1 January 2020. Within weeks the pandemic had changed it: CORDIS now titles DECODE as an effort to establish "potential applications of BV™ and its composite biomarkers in COVID-19 detection and patient management", and the randomised trial has disappeared from its objectives.

Where MeMed Stands Now

MeMed is active. The Israeli companies register, published as open data, lists MeMed Diagnostics Ltd as an active private company at Nahum Het 7 in Tirat Carmel, with its latest annual report filed for 2024; Israeli private companies do not publish their accounts, so revenue and losses are not public. The Israel Innovation Authority lists the same company number among its grant recipients.

In March 2026 the US Food and Drug Administration gave Breakthrough Device Designation to MeMed BV Flex, a version of the test that runs on a few drops of capillary blood and is meant for clinics outside hospitals, according to MLO and CLP. BV Flex is not yet cleared for sale. Ynetnews also reports a Canadian approval for MeMed BV in March 2026; no second source for that could be found. MeMed was awarded $2 million by the Israel Innovation Authority to build a biobank for AI-based diagnostics, according to GenomeWeb; CB Insights dates the grant to January 2026.

The Technology: Reading the Host, Not the Bug

Conventional tests look for the pathogen: a culture, which takes days, or a molecular panel, which can find a virus that is present but not causing the illness. MeMed BV measures three proteins the body produces in response to infection, TRAIL, IP-10 and CRP, and combines them with an algorithm into a score for how likely the infection is bacterial or viral. CRP on its own is routine in hospitals; MeMed's point is that TRAIL and IP-10 rise in viral infections, which a single marker cannot show. The DECODE final report gives sensitivity and specificity of over 90%.

The FDA cleared MeMed BV on the MeMed Key analyser for adult and paediatric serum on 1 September 2021, under 510(k) number K210254, based on a blinded study of more than 1,000 patients, as CAP Today reported. A whole-blood version, which skips clotting and centrifugation, followed in July 2023, according to Medical Device Network. In January 2023 MeMed signed with Beckman Coulter to put the assay on Beckman's Access immunoassay analysers, which sit in large hospital laboratories; Beckman later received a CE IVDR mark for the Access version, according to 360Dx.

What DECODE Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The project MeMed proposed in 2019 was a launch and a randomised controlled trial. The project it ran, as CORDIS records it, had three different objectives: deploy the BV test on the Key analyser at hospitals in Israel, Germany and Italy treating COVID-19 patients; collect real-world evidence on whether the test can spot early viral infection and predict how severe COVID-19 becomes; and mature the BV and Key system based on that experience. The final report, covering 2021, says that "the objectives of the DECODE project have been successfully attained".

1. Deploy BV and Key in hospitals in Israel, Germany and ItalySelf-reportedThe report says more systems were deployed in Israel and Europe in 2021 with rising use; it names no hospitals and gives no numbers.
2. Real-world COVID-19 evidenceDeliveredA PLOS ONE paper and a medRxiv preprint, and the CE-marked MeMed COVID-19 Severity test, reported by Calcalist Tech in July 2021.
3. Mature the BV and Key systemDeliveredReport says maturation was completed and verified in 2021; FDA clearance followed in September 2021.
4. Randomised controlled trial (original 2019 proposal)Late, outside the projectDropped from DECODE; the JUNO pilot trial in the US and Israel was completed in September 2024.

On its rewritten terms DECODE delivered on time: it ended on 31 December 2021 as planned, with a new CE-marked product and publications. The COVID-19 Severity test, however, does not appear in MeMed's news for 2024 to 2026, and the company's current product line is the BV test the original proposal was about. The randomised trial the Commission funded on paper in 2019 arrived only in 2024, in the United States, and was paid for outside the EIC project.

What MeMed Has Achieved Since the Award

That trial, JUNO, randomised adults with suspected lower respiratory tract infections in 11 emergency departments and urgent care centres in the US and Israel. It enrolled 260 patients and analysed 214. Antibiotics were prescribed to 24% of patients in the MeMed BV arm against 30% under standard care; with a viral score, 12% received antibiotics against 25%, and with a bacterial score 78% against 41%, with no rise in return visits or hospital admissions, according to the paper in Academic Emergency Medicine and Contagion Live. The paper calls it a pilot phase, so a larger trial is still to come.

Use has grown. MeMed said in June 2025 that more than 100,000 patients had been tested and that the test was in use at more than 150 sites, according to Business Wire; Ynetnews gives the same patient figure. In Europe the strongest public signal is in the UK, not the EU: NHS England's SBRI Healthcare programme funded a trial in March 2025 at Alder Hey in Liverpool, St Mary's in London and the Great North Children's Hospital in Newcastle, running until March 2026, according to National Health Executive and Jewish News. Its results had not been published by October 2026. No public source names a hospital in Germany or Italy using the test in routine care.

The Money

MeMed raised $70 million in a round led by Ping An Global Voyager Fund in September 2018, according to DealStreetAsia. On 10 January 2022 it announced a $93 million Series E led by Horizons Ventures, which Calcalist and the company's lawyers, Naschitz Brandes Amir, said brought total funding to over $200 million including support from the US Department of Defense and the European Commission. Israel Desks lists the other investors, among them Shavit Capital, Social Capital, Caesarea Medical Holdings, Phoenix Insurance and Poalim Equity, and gives about 100 staff in Israel, Europe and the US. No later equity round has been announced.

MeMed is not in the EIC Fund portfolio; its award was grant only and all 16 pages of the official list were checked. Revenue, losses and current staff numbers could not be verified, because the company files no public accounts.

Why Europe Should Care

On 13 June 2023 the Council of the EU adopted a recommendation on antimicrobial resistance that sets a target of cutting total human antibiotic consumption by 20% by 2030 from a 2019 baseline. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported a fall of only 2.5% between 2019 and 2022. A test that tells doctors when an infection is viral attacks the problem at the point of prescription.

The strategic return for Europe is less clear. MeMed is an Israeli company; its first regulatory breakthrough and its randomised trial came in the US, its commercial partner is the American Beckman Coulter, and its largest public trial in Europe is run by the UK's NHS.

The Verdict

MeMed has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.