Written question asked by Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Labour) on Thursday, 17 February 2011, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 28 February 2011. It was answered by Peter Luff (Conservative) on Monday, 28 February 2011 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

MRSA: Screening

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what steps he is taking to allow the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory's product BacLite, for screening against the MRSA bacterium, to be marketed in the UK;

Answer: Due to legal proceedings, I am limited in what I can say.Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) originally developed a technology for the rapid detection of bacteria, which was then made available to Acolyte under licence. Acolyte, with external venture capital, looked to exploit this technology for the detection of the MRSA bacterium in the civilian sector via the BacLite product. The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has not made any assessment of the BacLite product with respect to its MRSA detection capability.Following the liquidation of Acolyte in October 2009, the original intellectual property rights underpinning the failed BacLite product reverted to the ownership of Dstl. As the development of a product to detect MRSA is not part of the Department's core business, we have no intention to resurrect the BacLite product for such purposes.

Secondary information