On Wednesday, Cepheid confirmed that the company has managed to receive approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to market Xpert vanA, the company's test for vanA, the anti- microbial resistance gene which is most widely and commonly associated with one of the more serious infections related to healthcare.

The Sunnyvale based company shared that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that this infection tends to increase a patient's length of stays in a hospital, in addition to hiking the rates of mortalities and unnecessary use of antibiotics, and all these factor put together lead to higher costs for healthcare facilities.

After coming in contact with patients, healthcare workers might contract the infection as well, and spread them to other patients within the same hospital. Cepheid has also said that the infection can be spread from surfaces as well.

"Many patients in the areas of oncology, hematology, nephrology, transplant and abdominal surgery units are at highest risk for contracting VRE. Therefore, it's imperative to prevent potential outbreaks by testing for vanA upon admission of high risk patients", said Dr. David Persing, Chief Medical and Technology Officer at Cepheid.

Xpert vanA has become the firm's ninth test to receive FDA approval.