We devised a portable microscope prototype that acquires videos of capillary blood flow through the skin of patients in the finger nail-fold area.

In these videos, transparent particles that flow through the capillaries can be observed, tracked, and analyzed through proprietary software, which allows to obtain an estimate of the white-blood-cell level in a human subject.

Our prototype has been tested on 45 chemotherapy patients. It yielded promising results for the identification of patients with severely low white-blood-cell levels.

“This device–which has already been tested in 45 patients–will be able to quickly measure your white-blood-cell levels from home without requiring a single drop of your blood”

Healthcare

• Measurements done remotely from home would circumvent lenghty trips to the hospital, prevent hospitalizations due to infections, and reduce the costs and time required from nurses and clinicians.
• The overall quality of life, well-being, and prognosis of chemotherapy patients could be improved, thus implying an added value for patients and clinicians.

Healthcare system / Insurance companies

• Healthcare insurance companies seek to minimize adverse events occurring in the treatment of their clients. Substantially reducing hospitalization and other costs associated with infections would be seen as a substantial gain from their perspective.  

Pharma

• Several drugs that are used to treat various types of diseases (e.g., psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, etc.) can cause immunosuppression as a side effect
• A companion diagnostic device that can regularly monitor white-blood-cell levels would enable such drugs to be administered with increased safety.

Healthcare

In Europe, 1.5 million patients start a chemotherapy treatment each year. Assuming a 50€ cost per daily measurement and average chemotherapies of 16 weeks, the total available market amounts to 1.2 billion euros.

Healthcare system/Insurance companies

Hospitalizations due to infections amount to 20.000€. Approx. 250.000 patients per year are hospitalized due to an infection, resulting in a burden of 5 billion euros per year to the European healthcare system. 

Phrama

Currently, only 1/3 of chemotherapy patients are administered colony-stimulating factors. Our device will allow to identify patients at risk in a personalized manner, thus increasing these drugs’ market share (e.g., Neulasta, Amgen) to the whole patient population.

• Non-invasive system that does not require any blood draws or samples, reagents, or specific sanitary conditions to perform measurements
• Only one minute of the patient’s time is needed to acquire the data required for analysis with our device
• Our device could be used at home thanks to its portability and non-invasiveness; it thus avoids trips to the hospital and improves the patient’s quality of life
• Our device is able to monitor white-blood-cell levels with increased frequency, thus enabling every patient to be followed and treated in a personalized manner

 “Improving the quality of life through this device would constitute a substantial added value both for clinicians and patients”