Public Funding for Southwestsensor Limited

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Sepsis and trauma are among the most difficult, resource-intensive medical emergencies. Annual global sepsis cases are ~ 30m, with 6+m fatalities. UK has 250,000 sepsis cases annually with 46,000 deaths, costing £15.6 billion (York Health Economics Consortium). Annual US sepsis costs are $24bn, ~$14,000 per patient (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality). Lactate is the biomarker used to monitor sepsis. The sepsis diagnostics market is currently $370m with 10% CAGR (MarketsandMarkets). Continuous monitoring and speed of response are critical in improving clinical outcomes. Beyond first hour, every additional hour of delayed sepsis treatment increases mortality by 4% with septic shock 8%. Continuous lactate monitoring guides earliest possible intervention and monitoring treatment response with lactate clearance rate informs de-escalation of treatment towards patient discharge Lactate levels are currently measured using hospital central labs or point-of-care blood gas analysers. These 'offline' devices require repeated manual blood tests and nurses' attention, resulting in potentially missed critical events and delayed treatment. Continuous lactate monitoring solutions (Maquet - Eirus, Sphere Medical - Proxima) are too expensive, bulky and difficult to use, hampering clinical uptake. Electrochemical sensors (Probe Scientific -- ContinuMon) and wearables (PK Vitality, Caura) are under development but not near-market and unlikely to meet required accuracy/precision. Despite mounting evidence supporting biomarker-level guided sepsis management, and lactate monitoring already a key part of clinical guidelines, clinicians still rely on manual sampling and single-point measurements. An easy-to-use, accurate, autonomous lactate monitor is needed to tackle the sepsis challenge more effectively. Based on Dr Niu's research (funded by EPSRC, NERC, MRC, ICURe, and Innovate UK) SouthWestSensor (SWS) is developing a compact wearable lactate monitoring device to address this challenge. It combines SWSs' patented nano-droplet technology with its proprietary phase-shifted pumping approach to autonomously draw samples (serum or interstitial fluid) and run miniaturised wet chemical assays for quantitation. The project will research clinical and business drivers in the treatment of sepsis, analyze healthcare economics, develop a working prototype, and test this with key clinicians who form the Clinical Advisory board for the project. In addition to saving up to 14,000 lives p.a. and reducing NHS costs by ~£1.1bn, there will be wider social, regional and environmental benefits.

The wearable chemical sensor-cortisol project is an industrial research project that will allow SouthWestSensor (SWS) Ltd to offer a novel chemical sensor device for the measurement of cortisol, to be used in hospitals, community care and sport science. SWS Ltd has already established sensor devices for the measurement of chemical concentrations for a variety of biomarkers from body fluids such as glucose, lactate and thiols. This project will set up a new collaboration between SWS and LGC group, to develop a novel device for continuous measurement of cortisol – an important hormone indicator to many diseases. Because cortisol changes in circadian cycles, with the magnitude varying from person to person, the single point measurements currently performed in hospital do not give a representative picture of cortisol in the subject. This new device will provide a step forward for the thorough and accurate measurement and better diagnostics of related diseases. Since cortisol is linked to stress wearable devices can also provide a real time and continuous measurement of training effect and the body condition of elite athletes.