InnotiveDx Raises £3.1M to Bring Fast, Accurate UTI Diagnosis to the Point of Care

InnotiveDx, a UK medical device company, has raised £3.1 million to develop a point-of-care diagnostic device for urinary tract infections (UTIs). The company is building a device that can rapidly identify the microorganism causing a UTI and characterise its antibiotic sensitivity profile directly at the clinical point of care — in a GP surgery, urgent care setting, or hospital ward — without sending samples to a laboratory for culture-based analysis that typically takes 48 to 72 hours to return results.

UTIs are among the most common bacterial infections in the world, affecting hundreds of millions of people annually. In the UK alone, they account for tens of millions of GP consultations each year and are one of the most frequent reasons for antibiotic prescription. The current diagnostic standard — urine culture in a microbiology laboratory — is accurate but slow. Because the results take two to three days, most patients who present with UTI symptoms are given empirical antibiotic prescriptions immediately, based on clinical assessment rather than confirmed pathogen identity or sensitivity data. This practice contributes significantly to antibiotic resistance: empirical prescribing means that patients frequently receive broad-spectrum antibiotics that may be unnecessary or inappropriate for their specific infection, selecting for resistant organisms and contributing to the global antimicrobial resistance crisis.

InnotiveDx's device aims to close this diagnostic gap by providing actionable pathogen and sensitivity information within the clinical consultation or shortly thereafter. A rapid, accurate point-of-care UTI diagnostic would enable clinicians to prescribe targeted antibiotics — the narrowest-spectrum agent effective against the specific pathogen causing the infection — on the same day as the patient visit, improving treatment outcomes while reducing unnecessary broad-spectrum antibiotic use. The device would also help identify cases that require more urgent intervention, such as infections caused by organisms with specific resistance patterns that empirical treatment would fail to address.

The funding will be used to complete development of the device, conduct clinical validation studies in partnership with NHS and academic clinical sites, and advance towards regulatory submission for UK and European market entry. InnotiveDx is operating in a diagnostics market that has significant regulatory, NHS procurement, and antimicrobial stewardship tailwinds behind it.

Sources

• Crunchbase — InnotiveDx company profile