Enhanced stratification of COPD patients via integration of a digitally enabled biomarker Point-of-Care test within a Remote Patient Monitoring tool

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The enzyme Neutrophil Elastase (NE) is associated with the severity of several respiratory diseases, including Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), where repeated cycles of infection and inflammation leads to active NE release from immune cells, causing lung damage. Active NE is predictive of lung function loss and is the most informative biomarker to monitor disease activity.ProAxsis has developed a novel point-of-care test (NEATstik) which allows active NE to be quickly measured within 10 minutes. Researchers in Dundee have shown that a positive NEATstik test identifies patients suffering from a lung bacterial infection, who are most likely to benefit from antibiotics. Additionally, they used NEATstik to identify patients at highest risk of suffering from exacerbations over the following year. Thus, NEATstik can support appropriate antibiotic prescribing, and monitoring of their effect, to ensure that respiratory disease patients receive the treatment that is most likely to work for them.An additional key advantage of NEATstik is that it could be used in the patient's home, thereby avoiding unnecessary trips to hospital, a key consideration in the post-COVID environment. To make this viable, enhancements are needed for the sample processing required for conduct of the test. Further valuable information could be gained if the NEATstik result was combined with other respiratory health measures. This is a collaborative project between ProAxsis Limited, who developed NEATstik, the Centre for Process and Innovation (CPI), a world-renowned product engineering expert centre and Wanda Health, specialists in integrating new technologies into remote patient monitoring systems. Together, the partners will significantly enhance the sample processing required for NEATstik, and integrate the test alongside multiple other respiratory health measures into a remote patient monitoring tool, allowing patients to conduct the test at home, and their healthcare professionals to observe the NEATstik test result alongside other important health data.