| Project Detail |
"There are 60m adults suffering from diabetes in Europe and 3.8m in UK (5m by 2025). Diabetes has a high mortality rate caused mainly by complications (75,000 deaths p.a., of which 24,000 are premature). One life-threatening complication of diabetes is a diabetic foot ulcer (DFU). Studies revealed a 12% to 25% lifetime risk of developing DFU for diabetics, meaning over 9m Europeans (c.456,000 to 1m in UK) might suffer from DFU in their lifetime. A serious consequence of DFU is lower limb amputation; 85% of the amputations in diabetes sufferers are reported after unsuccessful DFU treatment amounting to 290,000–450,000 amputations/year in Europe, at a cost of €2–2.5bn/year.
The PODIUM™ technology is a novel, extremely reliable and highly sensitive solution for the cost-effective diagnosis and monitoring of DFUs through rapid temperature imaging and reliable analysis of thermographs. PODIUM™ will result in increased numbers of prevented DFUs through 10X higher sensitivity than any competitive solutions. A timely response from physicians, facilitated by PODIUM™ could reduce DFU-related amputations and healthcare costs. Thermetrix’s technology will provide a considerable Quality of Life (QoL) improvement for users and enable substantial savings in healthcare even if only a very small percentage would adopt PODIUM™. The global DFU and pressure ulcers market is expected to grow from US$2.8bn in 2015 to US$4.9bn by 2024 (CAGR 6.6%).
The objectives of this project are (1) experiment with the introduction of liquid crystalline cholesteric esters instead of infrared-cameras as detection method (dramatically decreasing the cost of the method); (2) validate the higher efficacy, diagnostic value, convenience and cost-effectiveness of PODIUM™ over conventional approaches; and (3) validate the business model based on ""unit costs plus cloud subscription"" with the aim of generating a ROI of 23:1 based only on European sales only. " |
