Addenbrooke’s clinicians have passed another major milestone in a long-running battle to develop a pioneering pneumonia test that could ultimately be rolled out in the UK and abroad.
The team has this month introduced into clinical practice their Ventilator Acquired Pneumonia test (VAP) to assist with treatment of critically ill patients in the John Farman Intensive Care Unit.
It comes after the Trust completed test development and technical validation with help from the Cambridge-based diagnostics company, EDX Medical, and its partner, the global life sciences company, Thermo Fisher Scientific.
The precision test measures or excludes a range of viral, fungal and bacterial pathogens in a sample of fluid taken from the lungs. The sample is dropped into recesses in a plastic card and slotted into a special machine.
It is so sophisticated it can create results for clinicians in hours, a vast improvement on the several days it takes to generate lab results from traditional microbiological tests, known as assays.
The information helps to ensure the right drugs are used in the right dose, and for the right time, to treat infections effectively, while minimising side effects and drug resistance.
The test will save ICU resources, which is important since hospital acquired pneumonia cases cost the NHS an estimated £1.5 billion a year and takes almost one million bed days. Community acquired pneumonia – which it can also test - is estimated to cost the NHS £731 million.
It is a significant moment for John Farman ICU consultant, Dr Vilas Navapurkar, and unit colleague, Dr Andrew Conway Morris, who also works at the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge.
They have been developing the test for more than a decade and most recently made headlines with a paper unveiling that there are three different types of pneumonia subtypes and they need treating in different ways.
In the early days they won support from Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust and The Forster Foundation, and they further collaborated on the test – which was used during Covid - with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
In 2025 EDX Medical licensed the intellectual property and clinical research data for the VAP test from Cambridge University Hospitals and UKHSA via Cambridge Enterprise.
Dr Navapurkar, said:
We are absolutely delighted that, after a lot of hard work, this partnership has delivered a test that is innovative and helpful in the care of critically ill patients on ICU.
The deployment of this test in our clinical practice is a milestone moment for the ICU here at Addenbrooke’s and has already demonstrated its beneficial impact for patients. It’s a great example of the benefits of new technologies in the NHS.
We are excited about the prospect of using the VAP test in the unit and supporting the partnership with EDX, to enable its regulatory approval and wider use to improve the care of critically ill ICU patients across the UK and Europe.
Dr Vilas Navapurkar
CEO of EDX Medical, Dr Mike Hudson, said:
The VAP test is the result of a great collaboration with the experts at Addenbrooke's and the University of Cambridge working with our scientists and the resources of Thermo Fisher.
We’re delighted to see it now being deployed in the Addenbrooke’s ICU thanks to the support of the hospital leadership and ICU clinical team. We are working to now generate real world data for regulators in order to make the VAP test available more widely as soon as possible.
Dr Mike Hudson
The development supports the Government's 10-year strategic plan for the NHS by deploying digital technology to bedside care to treat patients earlier.