Kromek secures multi-million dollar US defence contract extension

A global tech firm headquartered in County Durham has secured a multi-million dollar contract extension to develop pathogen-detecting technology.

Kromek, which is based in NETPark (North East Technology Park) in Sedgefield, has secured a $5.2m extension of its contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an agency of the US Department of Defense.

Under the terms of the new contract, which runs until June 2021, Kromek will work on DARPA’s mobile wide-area bio-surveillance system capable of detecting airborne pathogens.

Dr Arnab Basu, CEO of Kromek, commented: “We are delighted to be awarded this extension by DARPA. The technology developed under this program is capable of sample collection to comprehensive analysis of threats present in air in an autonomous manner.

“As the system can be vehicle mounted or placed in high footfall areas such as hospitals and airports, the location where the sample is collected can be mapped to a GPS position.

“The transfer of data to a central server allows a picture of pathogen levels across a city to be built up enabling decision makers to react rapidly to any evolving pathogenic threat.”

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