When a laboratory mishap becomes a “brilliant failure”: iSentio – a company on the verge of success

When a laboratory test goes wrong, it might just be that the outcome still turns out to be an innovation. This is the case with iSentio, which developed a real innovative method for deciding which bacteria a patient is infected with starting with a single mishap when trying to analyze a clinical sample. In such a sample, more than one type of bacteria can be found, which has made it almost time consuming and in some cases impossible to tailor-make the antibiotics treatment, exposing the patient to the danger of the infection spreading and worsening. However, the iSentio method called RipSeq®, was able to identify each bacteria present in the patient sample quickly, making it possible to apply the appropriate type of antibiotics immediately.

Written by Tor Aase Johannessen from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. Download case and teaching note at www.thecasecentre.org or request them from Tor.Johannessen@nhh.no.