Bio Nano Consulting (BNC), a UK-based life science spin-out of University College London (UCL) and Imperial College London (ICL) has designed an affordable device targeted at monitoring kidney disease.
19 people are diagnosed with kidney failure every day in the UK, with an annual cost to the National Health Service (NHS) of £1.4bn. BNC’s device works in the same way as a pregnancy test, and costs £10 (around $15).
Established in 2007, the joint venture utilises a technology called quantitative electrochemical lateral flow assay (QELFA), which uses nanoparticles to analyse protein levels in a patient’s urine.
Paulo Actis, Bio Nano Consulting consultant and project manager, said: “Like a glucose monitor, QELFA is quick and non-invasive. Over the next 18 months we will be taking the device from the laboratory to the prototype stage. Its development fits in well with the NHS five-year plan which involves decentralising medicine and letting patients have more control over their own health, as well as helping to reduce the workload for testing laboratories.”
