OpenBiome provides its 5000th treatment

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After experiencing a rapid growth in demand for its clinical treatments, OpenBiome is on track to treat 1-in-10 patients in the U.S. suffering from C. difficile by end of year.

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Medford, MA – Following only ten months after marking 1000 treatments provided, OpenBiome shipped its 5000th treatment for recurrent Clostridium difficile yesterday.

C. difficile, one of the most common hospital-acquired diseases, infects roughly half a million Americans every year, with 30,000 deaths as a result.  While often initially treatable with antibiotics, about 1 in 5 patients experience multiple recurrences. OpenBiome’s fecal microbiota preparation (FMT) is used to treat recurrent C. difficile at over 400 partner hospitals across the country. FMT involves transplanting carefully screened, processed stool from a healthy donor into a sick patient’s colon.

With FMTs shown to be around 90% effective across several clinical studies, providing heavily screened, processed treatments at-cost is essential to lowering the access barrier and making an impact on the prevalence of C. difficile. As such, OpenBiome last year announced its initiative to treat 1 in 10 patients across the U.S. suffering from recurrent C. difficile.

“Reaching 5000 treatments so quickly after OpenBiome’s 1000th treatment supplied, this marks a milestone in OpenBiome’s rapid expansion over the past two years,” said James Burgess, co-founder and Executive Director. “This success is on track with OpenBiome’s projections for the necessary growth to provide treatments for 1-in-10 patients in the U.S. with recurrent C. difficile by end of year, making a significant impact on this national health burden.”

The rapid growth of this service is due to the ease and cost-effectiveness for physicians using OpenBiome material. Providing at-cost, rigorously screened material takes the burden off the physician to find and coordinate with an eligible donor, and to process the fecal material. OpenBiome is committed to simplifying and lowering the cost of FMT, to enable access and thereby combat the spread of recurrent C. difficile.

Contact: media@openbiome.org

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Twitter: @openbiome

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