Point of care diagnostic test for the differential diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is an umbrella term referring to two hard to diagnose chronic intestinal diseases: ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD). IBD is a relapsing condition and diagnosis can be missed if tests are carried out during remission. Thus, the diagnosis of IBD relies on a combination of different tests over a long period. However, for half the patients this results in late diagnosis, a major drawback since often the optimal treatment and management is already affected. Furthermore, IBD diagnosis using current tools (1) can be uncomfortable for patients, (2) carry significant risks including gastrointestinal perforation, and (3) in terms of monetary cost are expensive. Thus, in recent years researchers have been investigating the role of the gut microbiome in IBD, hoping to identify trademark features that could speed up diagnosis and combat the increasing prevalence of IBD in western socities. However, until now the use of this approach has been limited in the field of routine clinical diagnostics due to several limitations. After years of R&D, IPDx has overcome these concerns and introduces IBDetect: the world´s first single test for the differential detection of IBD. It can be used discriminate between the two different types of IBD from a very early, pre-symptomatic stage. All of this can be done in a minimally invasive, cost- and time-effective way with remarkable accuracy. IBDetect can be used to decrease the mean time to diagnosis in UC and CD as well as benefit the optimal treatment and management of these diseases. Our primary target group include gastroenterologists in European hospitals and medical centres in the US. We address the global in vitro diagnostics market in which the IBD-related gastrointestinal diagnostics segment is estimated to reach over €7 billion by 2026. During the Phase 1 study IPDx will conduct a comprehensive feasibility study that includes both technical and commercialisation aspects of the innovation.