Development of a Quantitative Point of Care Salivary Testosterone Test

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Soma Bioscience is a R & D SME that needs to expand product lines to grow and survive. Endocrine testing is a rapidly developing activity in response to the growing prevavlence of obesity and diabetes, with the global market estimated at US$6.1 bn in 2014 and projected to reach $12.8 bn by 2023. Saliva collection and analysis has rapidly and recently developed as a tool for the assessment of biomarkers usually measured in blood and offers the advantage of being non-invasive, less stressful to participants, is cheaper and requiring less expertise than venipuncture. The development of a Point of Care testosterone test is a bioscience characterisation and discovery tool that would enable much quicker and cheaper results than traditional, yet slow, blood laboratory methods. The novel aspect of this project is that no real-time test to measure anaobolic hormones exists, yet is relevant to researchers and clinicians in the fields of stress, disease, well-being, sexual function and sport science. In the field of healthcare, such a tool is becoming more relevant to an ageing population. This project aims to produce a protoype salivary testosterone Point of Care LF test, that can generate revenue immediately as a research tool, before moving to full commercialisation and clinical trials.