GUTLAB – A SMART PILL FOR REMOTE HEALTH MONITORING VIA THE GUT MICROBIOME

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Enteromics are addressing the unmet challenge of longevity through developing a platform that enables remote health monitoring via the gut microbiome. The gut microbiome is crucial to health -- it affects your metabolism, immune system and even brain function. The food we eat, medications, exercise, sleep and stress all affect the gut microbiome and can cause it to become disrupted, leading to many diseases such as obesity, gut problems and even Alzheimer's. Enteromics is providing an ingestible smart sensing pill that tracks the microbiome and provides feedback to a smartphone App, in real-time.Enteromics is a start-up founded in 2019 by Phoebe Heseltine, a materials scientist and Mariam Elgabry, a biotechnologist. They are developing a range of smart pills to monitor and detect chronic diseases, beginning with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).Through this innovate UK Smart Grant, the core components of the ingestible device -- developed through the co-founders' initial research -- will be evaluated for safety and performance, in partnership with University College London. The work carried out in this grant is key to developing a strong IP position and determining the next steps to manufacturing, which will enable Enteromics to bring this technology to market.Exercise, nutrition, sleep and other lifestyle factors, as well as drug treatments offered, have an immediate effect on the gut microbiome and this provides a window of opportunity for better management of chronic conditions through continuous microbiome monitoring. If successful, the technology will outperform existing methods of sampling the microbiome such as faecal sampling, which are inconvenient, expensive and slow to provide results.The product will first launch in the UK to serve sufferers of IBD, a chronic relapsing gastrointestinal disorder for which there is no cure. IBD prevalence in the UK is second highest in the world, costing the NHS £720 million a year. Following successful launch in the UK the technology will be sold in North America, the fastest growing market for both ingestible sensors and microbiome products.Many sufferers seek repeated medical care for flare-ups, with frequent invasive medical exams, prescription of ineffective treatments and surgery. In IBD patients there is a very strong link between gut microbiome changes and disease flare-ups. With Enteromics' technology, individuals will be able to monitor their condition in a way that is medically safe, convenient and effective. Enteromics see their technology expanding into management of other chronic conditions as well as in consumer applications.