Public Funding for Echopoint Medical Ltd

no public description

Echopoint Medical are a new med-tech start-up who are focused on developing new technology to significantly improve diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease (CHD). Globally, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death among women and men (1.8M patients in the UK). Many of these patients have narrowings or blockages of blood vessels in their heart that limit blood flow, which can lead to chronic pain (angina) and heart attacks. One of the most common treatments is to use a wire mesh tube, known as a "stent", to hold the diseased vessel open and restore adequate blood flow to the heart muscle. During the implantation of these stents, clinicians' treatment decisions are often guided by data from medical devices placed inside the arteries of the heart. However, today's devices provide only incomplete information about disease in the heart and consequently many patients are incompletely or incorrectly treated. Women with cardiovascular disease are underserved: compared with men, they present with a higher burden of symptoms and experience similar or worse outcomes, but are less likely to have obstructions that can be treated by stents. Echopoint will address a key need: to provide concurrent pressure and flow measurements from inside coronary arteries to significantly improve diagnosis and treatment for patients with cardiovascular disease -- particularly those with obstructive coronary artery disease and coronary microvascular dysfunction. The applicants have developed new technology that uses miniature fibre optic sensors to measure both blood pressure and flow from inside arteries. These sensors will provide key clinical data to improve clinical decision making about whether to place a stent in the vessel and also to guide treatments for patients who do not receive stents. Funding from this project will be transformative and enable Echopoint Medical to offer a cost-effective product for the NHS. Our current sensor has been shown to be highly accurate; however, we face two key challenges: 1) a size reduction to permit integration into devices called guidewires that are used in current clinical practice and 2) a significant reduction in manufacturing costs. For the first, we will perform the key step of reducing the sensor from two optical fibres to a single optical fibre: a challenging but attainable with close links to the University College London. For the second, we will work closely with manufacturing subcontractors in the UK to ensure scale-up with significant cost reductions for competing effectively in global markets.

This project is focused on the development of a new medical device to improve diagnosis and treatment of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD). CHD remains the leading cause of death worldwide. Patient symptoms occur when a build-up of plaque restricts coronary blood flow. Clinicians' decisions about treatment are often guided by data from medical devices placed inside the arteries of the heart. Currently, these devices provide information about differences in blood pressure on either side of plaque build-up, to determine whether to place a stent. We are developing a new medical device that provides direct information about both blood flow and blood pressure. Direct measures of blood flow have been shown to be valuable to improve clinical decision-making about whether to place a coronary stent. Our solution will be compatible with clinical workflow, and by providing direct measures of blood flow, it will lead to more accurate assessments about whether stent placement is required, which will improve patient outcomes and reduce costs to the healthcare system. One of the innovative aspects of our device is a novel fibre-optic sensing platform that comprises a highly miniaturised, fibre-optic flow and pressure sensor, and a single-use miniature microcatheter device into which the sensor is integrated. The technology has been validated in the benchtop laboratory and in early-stage pre-clinical models. The aim of this project is to develop advanced prototype devices and to test them in clinically-realistic settings. The project will fulfil a key development step: the progression to clinically-validated pre-clinical prototypes to enable commercial manufacturing for future clinical trials.

"Echopoint are a UK-based medical technology SME at the cutting edge of enhanced diagnostics. Their first product will address the urgent need for better assessment of blood flow within heart arteries during stenting procedures for heart attacks, enabling a precise diagnosis of the patient's condition and patient-specific recommendations for treatment. This will thereby improve the patients outcome in this life-or-death situation. They have designed a miniaturised sensing catheter, less than half a millimetre in diameter, that is able to be passed by doctors into the heart to guide treatment of cholesterol blockages within the blood vessels. Uniquely, it is able to sense many different signals at once, such as blood temperature to one thousandth of a degree and the flow of blood within the vessel itself. Combining these highly specific measures with high-fidelity electrocardiogram (ECG) signals will enable an unprecedented level of information about microvascular physiology, and provide a foundation for a wide range of future developments. Supported by the Precision Medicine Accelerator, Echopoint will finalise the catheter and console design, and develop the analytic tools to leverage highly specific patient data to provide clear treatment recommendations to treating physicians. A 10 patient First In Human (FIH) clinical study will demonstrate early clinical proof of concept. The project will thus accomplish key steps towards the commercialisation of an entirely new fibre-optic sensing platform. The Echopoint team are made up of recognised leaders in their fields. Top optical, electrical and biomedical engineers are joined by a cardiologist and an experienced medtech business expert who will lead this highly innovative company through to successful commercialisation. The Precision Medicine Investment Accelerator provides valuable assurance and risk-reduction that is required to attract the major private and venture funding. It will enable Echopoint to launch as a new UK based, high-tech University spin out, acceleration the development of its new sensing technologies to bring benefits for patients in the NHS and worldwide. The platform developed by Echopoint is poised to affect many facets of medical diagnosis by providing enhanced information for doctors and thereby ensuring the most effective and applicable treatment is provided."