Establishing a translational leader in precision medicine through knowledge transfer to develop point-of-care drug monitoring technologies

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This bi-directional collaboration, offers a secondee from Newcastle University an opportunity to work with an innovative biomedical start-up, Vesynta Ltd, for the development of a novel companion monitoring tool, enabling doctors to accurately monitor anti-cancer drug-exposure in children. It will provide an immediate, simple to use, bedside measurement of medicine concentration in the blood: an essential improvement in care.Cancer is the leading cause of death in children aged 0-14 years. Giving the safest and most effective dose of anti-cancer drugs to children is a clinical challenge for doctors. They currently calculate the amount of anti-cancer drugs the patient will have using their height and weight as a guide. However, as children's bodies all process medicines very differently, this method is not accurate and leads to marked differences in drug exposure between patients. As a result, ~40% of children suffer from medicine related side-effects which reduces their quality of life and costs healthcare providers.To give the correct amount of treatment, doctors need technologies which provide real-time and accurate patient drug exposure data; yet, this information is rarely available and challenging tto obtain. Vesynta has developed a technology with promises to meet these criteria, however, it requires quality assurance over its technology, further design considerations to ensure it is suited for the end-user, and an expansion of the technology to co-medicines which are also given to children, to ensure maximum patient benefit.This project will leverage the secondee's skills in drug testing development, clinical pharmacology and problem-solving using analytical instruments, to validate the platform technology. In return, the secondee shall become a 'Translation and Innovation Lead' at Newcastle University, with skills exposure to human factors design, medical device regulation and health economics. The project shall build on the voiced needs of patients, parents and doctors, as captured from stakeholder engagement workshops designed by the secondee, who shall also support follow-up research plans through clinical trial design.This carefully planned research, will provide benefit to both secondee and host organisation, in terms of skills, knowledge and career porosity. The successful delivery of this project will propel the secondee in his professional ambitions and support Vesynta in accelerating their research and development activity. Crucially, facilitation of biomedical innovation will fast-track the implementation of personalised medicine in paediatric oncology, for the benefit to children and the wider healthcare sector.Update (Oct. 2022) - following discussion with our project manager (Liz Littlewood) we have a new secondee in place to take this project forward following staffing changes here at the university. The new secondee has a >90% match of the original learning outcomes and their role exactly aligns with the original proposals, due to similarity of the role the new individual holds within the host organization.