Digitalization and analysis of skin surfaces for a fast and automated allergic diagnosis
Allergic diseases are considered to be the epidemic of the 21st century in developed countries. Currently, near 25% of the population suffers some form of allergic reaction, either food, skin or respiratory. The diagnosis of these reactions is crucial for prescribing the patient the right treatment. 
To determine if a person is allergic or not, today’s most widespread method is the Prick Test. It consists in the deposit of a series of drops of the allergens to be tested on the patient’s forearm and then pierce it, getting the allergen to enter the system. After several minutes, the patient will show a reaction, and this reaction will be used to quantify the sensitivity of the patient, the way to size each reaction is done manually by the specialist. However, it offers a very poor precision and the process is very slow. 
INNOPRICK has developed a new ICT solution to make the Prick Test more accurate (40%), faster (90%) and at a lower cost (-90%), thus helping the medical staff make a more rigorous diagnosis. It consists of a laser device capable of scanning the forearm after implementing the different allergens into the skin and the appearance of the papules. After the scan, the device transfers the results to a software that identifies and quantifies the allergic reactions. Finally, it allows to save the results into the hospital’s database.
The Innoprick system allows the professionals to obtain quantitative values of a reaction that serve as a reference in the different allergy studies regardless of the hospital centre where it has been done in order to give a better diagnosis to the patient.
All the developments and advances have been done hand by hand with a group of doctors from the University Hospital of Navarra, led by Dr. Gabriel Gastaminza (allergist) who initially contacted the University of Navarra to find a solution for the detected inaccuracies of the Prick Test. 
The invention was patented in 2014 with publication nº: EP2967331A1.