ICL-founded Accunea hopes to commercialise a medical device enabling clinicians to catch acute kidney injuries earlier than currently possible.
Accunea, a UK-based kidney injury detection device developer based on Imperial College London (ICL) research, made its public debut today with the support of ICL tech transfer office Imperial Innovations, a subsidiary of commercialisation firm IP Group.
Founded in March 2017, Accunea is building a medical device called Renosure that will help monitor patients for early warning signs of acute kidney injury (AKI), where sudden damage usually resulting from serious illness causes the organs to lose function.
Renosure works by exploiting advanced bioanalytical hardware in combination with artificial intelligence to facilitate live monitoring of the patient’s creatinine levels, a crucial biomarker for kidney health.
Professionals are alerted when creatinine levels become cause for concern, facilitating preventative measures designed to stop AKI from progressing. Without prompt treatment, AKI can in some cases eventually stop the kidneys working.
Accunea’s device extends research co-led by Robert Learney, the current lead technologist for blockchain and distributed ledger technology at innovation centre Digital Catapult who had been with ICL as a PhD researcher focused on biomedical devices.
Learney was assisted by ICL master’s graduate Jez Marston, who is now completing his MD-PhD in medicine and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine.
Accunea was launched under ICL’s Founders Choice pilot scheme, which grants founders willing to make use of fewer tech transfer resources the opportunity to take a greater equity share in university spinouts.
