Clear Sky Medical Diagnostics - Health Economic Assessment for monitoring the side effects of Parkinson's medication and informing treatment

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Parkinson’s disease (PD) affects approximately 120,000 people in the UK alone and isprojected to increase dramatically over the next decade as people live longer. The mosteffective form of treatment for PD symptoms is a drug called levodopa, but approximately90% patients who take it for ten years or more develop involuntary movements calleddyskinesia. These movements are a major source of disability and severely affect the patient’squality of life with complications of uncontrolled dyskinesia including falls and fractures.Financial implications are significant; Hauser and Pahwa report “In the year following onsetof dyskinesia, overall treatment costs increase by $7795 and PD-related costs increased by$4194 pa”. Management of dyskinesia is particularly difficult as it may occur many times perday and an accurate method of monitoring is not available. Currently, physicians rely onpatients’ descriptions or in severe cases patients are admitted to hospital for several days tomonitor symptoms and adjust their medication accordingly. Because it is currently difficult tomeasure dyskinesia accurately, the changes to the patient’s medication can often beineffective.Clear Sky Medical Diagnostics (CSMD) has developed a unique technology, which has anumber of advantages over current monitoring approaches, focussing particularly on the speedand objectivity of the measurement. Small scale clinical trials have taken place, but theeconomic benefits for the NHS and international health organisations are as yetundocumented. York Health Economic Consortium has been approached in order to set outthe potential financial savings, and to also measure the benefit of the technology in terms ofQALY (quality adjusted life years), a standard measurement for assessing health technologiesbased on improvement in patients’ wellbeing. Provision of this health economic assessment,alongside the clinical data already in place will allow CSMD to go to market with thistechnology.