Organization

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2020

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

Organization

Note 1 – Organization

OpGen, Inc. (“OpGen” or the “Company”) was incorporated in Delaware in 2001. References in this report to the “Company” include OpGen and its wholly-owned subsidiaries. The Company’s headquarters are in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and its principal operations are in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The Company also has operations in Copenhagen, Denmark and Bogota, Colombia. The Company operates in one business segment.

Business Combination Transaction with Curetis N.V.

On April 1, 2020 (the “Closing Date”), the Company completed its business combination transaction (the “Transaction”) with Curetis N.V., a public company with limited liability under the laws of the Netherlands (the “Seller”), as contemplated by the Implementation Agreement, dated as of September 4, 2019 (the “Implementation Agreement”), by and among the Company, the Seller, and Crystal GmbH, a private limited liability company organized under the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany and wholly owned subsidiary of the Company (“Purchaser”). Pursuant to the Implementation Agreement, the Purchaser acquired all of the shares of Curetis GmbH, a private limited liability company organized under the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany (“Curetis GmbH”) and certain other assets and liabilities of the Seller, as further described below, and paid, as the sole consideration, 2,028,208 shares of the Company’s common stock, par value $0.01 per share (the “Common Stock”), to the Seller, and reserved for future issuance (a) 134,356 shares of Common Stock, in connection with its assumption of the Seller’s 2016 Stock Option Plan, as amended (the “Seller Stock Option Plan”), and the outstanding awards thereunder, and (b) 500,000 shares of Common Stock to be issued upon the conversion, if any, of certain convertible notes issued by the Seller, of which 265,002 shares have been issued as of May 8, 2020, in satisfaction of approximately $543,000 of outstanding principal and indebtedness under the assumed convertible notes. The 2,028,208 shares of Common Stock issued to the Seller represented approximately 13.8% of the outstanding Common Stock of the Company as of the Closing Date.

At the closing, the Company assumed all of the liabilities of the Seller solely and exclusively related to the acquired business, which is providing innovative solutions, through development of proprietary platforms, diagnostic content, applied bioinformatics, lab services, research services and commercial collaborations and agreements, for molecular microbiology, diagnostics designed to address the global challenge of detecting severe infectious diseases and identifying antibiotic resistances in hospitalized patient (the “Curetis Business”). Pursuant to the Implementation Agreement, the Company also assumed and adopted the Seller Stock Option Plan as an Amended and Restated Stock Option Plan of the Company. In connection with the foregoing, the Company assumed all awards thereunder that were outstanding as of the Closing Date and converted such awards into options to purchase shares of the Company’s Common Stock pursuant to the terms of the applicable award. In addition, the Company assumed, at the closing, all of the outstanding convertible notes issued by Seller in favor of YA II PN, LTD, pursuant to the previously disclosed Assignment of the Agreement for the Issuance of and Subscription to Notes Convertible into Shares, dated February 24, 2020 (the “Assignment Agreement”), and entered into pursuant to the Implementation Agreement. In this Quarterly Report we refer to the combined business following the consummation of the Transaction as “Newco”.

OpGen Overview

OpGen is a precision medicine company harnessing the power of molecular diagnostics and informatics to help combat infectious disease. The Company is developing molecular information products and services for global healthcare settings, helping to guide clinicians with more rapid and actionable information about life threatening infections, improve patient outcomes, and decrease the spread of infections caused by multidrug-resistant microorganisms, or MDROs. Its proprietary DNA tests and informatics address the rising threat of antibiotic resistance by helping physicians and other healthcare providers optimize care decisions for patients with acute infections.

The Company’s molecular diagnostics and informatics products, product candidates and services combine its Acuitas molecular diagnostics and Acuitas Lighthouse informatics platform for use with its proprietary, curated MDRO knowledgebase. The Company is working to deliver products and services, some in development, to a global network of customers and partners.

· The Company’s Acuitas molecular diagnostic tests provide rapid microbial identification and antibiotic resistance gene information. These products include its Acuitas antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, Gene Panel Urine test in development for patients at risk for complicated urinary tract infection, or cUTI, and its Acuitas AMR Gene Panel test for use with bacterial isolates in development for testing bacterial isolates, and its QuickFISH and PNA FISH FDA-cleared and CE-marked diagnostics used to rapidly detect pathogens in positive blood cultures. Each of the Acuitas AMR Gene Panel tests is available for sale for research use only, or RUO and is not for use in diagnostic procedures.

· The Company’s Acuitas Lighthouse informatics systems are cloud-based HIPAA compliant informatics offerings that combine clinical lab test results with patient and hospital information to provide analytics and actionable insights to help manage MDROs in the hospital and patient care environment. Components of the informatics systems include the Acuitas Lighthouse Knowledgebase and the Acuitas Lighthouse Software. The Acuitas Lighthouse Knowledgebase is a relational database management system and a proprietary data warehouse of genomic data matched with antibiotic susceptibility information for bacterial pathogens. The Acuitas Lighthouse Software system includes the Acuitas Lighthouse Portal, a suite of web applications and dashboards, the Acuitas Lighthouse Prediction Engine, which is a data analysis software, and other supporting software components. The Acuitas Lighthouse Software can be customized and made specific to a healthcare facility or collaborator, such as a pharmaceutical company. The Acuitas Lighthouse Software is not distributed commercially for antibiotic resistance prediction and is not for use in diagnostic procedures.

The Company’s operations are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. The risks include the risk that the Company will not receive 510(k) clearance for its Acuitas AMR Gene Panel test for use with bacterial isolates on a timely basis, or at all, the timing and ultimate success of future 510(k) and De Novo submissions for additional Acuitas AMR Gene Panel tests and Acuitas Lighthouse Software, rapid technology changes, the need to retain key personnel, the need to protect intellectual property and the need to raise additional capital financing on terms acceptable to the Company. The Company’s success depends, in part, on its ability to develop, obtain regulatory approval for and commercialize its proprietary technology as well as raise additional capital. 

Overview of the Curetis Business

The Curetis Business develops, manufactures and commercializes innovative solutions for molecular microbiology.

The Curetis business is based on two complementary business pillars:

· The Unyvero A50 is a high-plex polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, platform for comprehensive and rapid diagnosis of severe infectious diseases in hospitalized patients. The platform is based on proven, intelligently integrated technologies, allowing for the testing of broad panels of pathogens and antibiotic resistance markers and the processing of a large variety of native patient samples with an intuitive workflow. The Unyvero A50 high-plex PCR platform’s advantage is the timely access to comprehensive, actionable and reliable data. Curetis’ molecular tests for different indications are commercially available in Europe, the United States, Asia and the Middle East. The Curetis Group is also developing the Unyvero A30 RQ Analyzer, which is designed to serve as a platform with low-to medium-plex capabilities that it ultimately intends to commercially leverage predominantly in collaborations with one or more diagnostics industry partners.

· The ARES AMR database, or ARESdb, is a comprehensive database of the genetics of antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, which permits Curetis to increasingly utilize the proprietary biomarker content in its own assay and cartridge development, as well as to build an independent business in next-generation sequencing, or NGS, based offerings for AMR research and diagnostics in collaboration with partners in the life science, pharmaceutical and diagnostics industries. ARESdb is not commercially available in the United States for diagnostic use, as it has not been cleared by the FDA. In September 2019, Ares Genetics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Curetis, or Ares Genetics, signed a technology evaluation agreement with an undisclosed global IVD corporation. In the first phase of the collaboration, expected to take about 10 months, Ares Genetics expects to further enrich ARESdb with a focus on certain pathogens relevant in a first, undisclosed infectious disease indication.

Curetis GmbH’s offices and R&D laboratories are based in Holzgerlingen, near Stuttgart with its cartridge manufacturing facility in Bodelshausen also in southern Germany, in addition to subsidiaries located in San Diego, California, USA and Vienna, Austria.

Overview of Newco

We anticipate that the focus of Newco will be on its combined broad portfolio of products, which include high impact rapid diagnostics and bioinformatics to interpret AMR genetic data. The products we expect Newco to focus on are for lower respiratory infection and urinary tract infection:

· The Unyvero Lower Respiratory Tract, or LRT, test is the first FDA cleared test that can be used for more than 90% of infection cases of hospitalized pneumonia patients. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (2018), pneumonia is a leading cause of admissions to the hospital and is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. The Unyvero LRT automated test detects 19 pathogens within less than five hours, with approximately two minutes of hands-on time and provides clinicians with a comprehensive overview of 10 genetic antibiotic resistance markers. We are also commercializing the Unyvero LRT test for testing bronchoalveolar lavage, or BAL, specimens of U.S. patients with lower respiratory tract infections following FDA clearance received by Curetis in December 2019. We believe the Unyvero LRT test has the ability to help address a significant, previously unmet medical need that causes over $10 billion in annual costs for the U.S. healthcare system, according to the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC.

· The Acuitas AMR Gene Panel (Urine) ) test is being developed for patients at risk for cUTI, and is designed to test for up to five pathogens and up to 47 antimicrobial resistance genes. When paired with the Acuitas Lighthouse software, we believe the test will be able to help improve management of the more than one million patients in the United States with cUTI. The AMR Gene Panel (Urine) is in testing for preparation of a De Novo submission with the FDA. We are pursuing a Class I designation through a De Novo Request for the test in connection with an initial clinical indication to test bacterial isolates.

Newco will have an extensive offering of additional in vitro diagnostic tests including CE-marked Unyvero tests for implant and tissue infections, intra-abdominal infections, cUTI, and blood stream infections, and the QuickFISH and PNA FISH FDA-cleared and CE-marked diagnostics used to rapidly detect pathogens in positive blood cultures, which we believe have an established market position in the United States.

Newco’s combined AMR informatics offerings, once all such products are cleared for marketing, if ever, will offer important new tools to clinicians treating patients with AMR infections. OpGen has collaborated with Merck, Inc. to establish the Acuitas Lighthouse Knowledgebase, which is currently commercially available in the United States for RUO. The Acuitas Lighthouse Knowledgebase includes approximately 15,000 bacterial isolates from the Merck SMART surveillance network of 192 hospitals in 52 countries and other sources. The Curetis ARESdb is a comprehensive database of genetic and phenotypic information. ARESdb was originally designed based on the SIEMENS microbiology strain collection covering resistant pathogens over the last 30 years and its development has significantly expanded to now include approximately 55,000 sequenced isolate strains and phenotypic correlation data against over 100 antibiotics. In September 2019, Ares Genetics signed a technology evaluation agreement with an undisclosed global IVD corporation. In the first phase of the collaboration, expected to take about 10 months, Ares Genetics expects to further enrich ARESdb with a focus on certain pathogens relevant in a first, undisclosed infectious disease indication. We anticipate that Newco will utilize the proprietary biomarker content in these databases, as well as to build an independent business in NGS and AI based offerings for AMR research and diagnostics in collaboration with partners in the life science, pharmaceutical and diagnostics industries.

The Unyvero A50 tests for up to 130 diagnostic targets (pathogens and resistance genes) in under five hours with approximately two minutes of hands-on time. The system was first CE Marked in 2012 and was FDA cleared in 2018 along with the LRT test through De Novo  process. As of December 31, 2019, there is an installed base of 173 Unyvero A50 Analyzers globally. The Unyvero A30 RQ is a new device designed to address the low to mid-plex testing market for 5-30 DNA targets and to provide results in 45 to 90 minutes with 2-5 minutes of hands on time. The Unyvero A30 has a small laboratory footprint and has an attractive cost of goods profile. Curetis has been following a partnering strategy for the Unyvero A30.

Newco has extensive partner and distribution relationships to help accelerate the establishment of a global infectious disease diagnostic testing and informatics business. Partners will include A. Menarini Diagnostics for pan-European distribution to currently 11 countries; MGI/BGI for NGS-based molecular microbiology applications in China; and Beijing Clear Biotech Co. Ltd. for Unyvero A50 product distribution in China. Newco has a network currently consisting of 18 distributors covering 43 countries.

Newco will continue to develop and seek FDA and other regulatory clearances or approvals, as applicable, for the Acuitas AMR Gene Panel (Urine) diagnostic test and the Acuitas Lighthouse Software products. Newco will continue to offer the Acuitas AMR Gene Panel (Isolates) and Acuitas Lighthouse Software as well as the Unyvero UTI Panel as RUO products to hospitals, public health departments, clinical laboratories, pharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations, or CROs.