ShanX Medtech raises €24M to crack antibiotic resistance

Eindhoven-based ShanX Medtech raises €24 million to accelerate its one-hour antibiotic diagnostic system. The startup aims to replace multi-day lab cultures with rapid, point-of-care precision.

At the core of this investment is Shanx's diagnostics platform, engineered to eliminate the bottleneck in bacterial culture growth. Traditional Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (AST) relies on growing bacteria in a lab, a biological process that inevitably takes two to three days. The startup's technology bypasses this delay entirely. It achieves this by analyzing patient samples directly, eliminating time-consuming sample preparation or subculturing steps that are common in current workflows.

The technology uses a single, stackable cartridge system that can handle a broad spectrum of microbes, making it versatile for complex clinical microbiology workflows. Unlike massive mainframe diagnostic machines restricted to central laboratories, the unit is compact and designed for point-of-care use. This decentralization means a general practitioner or a nursing home could run a test and prescribe the appropriate antibiotic during a single patient visit. The system minimizes hands-on time for medical staff by automating the complex biological interrogation required to determine which drug will kill a specific pathogen. This is a hardware solution to a biological latency problem.

Bringing the technology to the market

“We founded ShanX Medtech because of a single patient story, one that revealed how much is at stake when diagnostic results arrive too late,” said Dr. Sophia E. Shanko, Founder and CEO of ShanX Medtech. “Our vision is to equip every clinician with the ability to act decisively, guided by diagnostic evidence in real-time. This funding brings us significantly closer to delivering ultra-rapid AST directly to both laboratory and point-of-care environments; faster, simpler, and more accessible than ever before.”

The €24 million seed round is a blend of public and private capital designed to de-risk high-stakes medical innovation. The round was led by the Borski Fund, with participation from NextGen Ventures, the Brabant Development Agency (BOM), CbusineZ, and Invest-NL. Crucially, the financing structure includes an €8.85 million contract from the European Commission, channeled through the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA).

ShanX's tech impact

The implications of this technology extend far beyond individual patient outcomes; they address a critical vulnerability in global healthcare infrastructure. By enabling same-day evidence-based prescriptions, ShanX provides the 'So What' for healthcare policymakers: the preservation of our antibiotic arsenal. The economic argument is equally compelling. Invest-NL estimates that widespread adoption of this technology could generate millions of euros in annual healthcare savings in the Netherlands alone. These savings stem from shorter hospital stays, fewer complications from ineffective treatments, and reduced use of expensive, last-line antibiotics.

The path to certification

ShanX's Medtech system is not yet available for sale and must still receive regulatory approval. The company has signed a contract with Erasmus Medical Center and AMR GLOBAL to validate the platform specifically for Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs), a project funded by Health Holland. UTIs represent a high-volume, high-impact use case where rapid diagnostics can immediately reduce unnecessary prescriptions.

Simultaneously, the company is collaborating with Catharina Hospital and Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) to assess the device's performance in treating sepsis and meningitis—conditions in which every hour of delay increases mortality risk. Success in these trials will determine whether the technology becomes a clinical staple or remains an experimental novelty