Imperial Innovations Group Regulatory News (IVO)

RNS Reach

11 December 2013

Imperial Innovations Group plc

Innovations portfolio company IXICO launches decision support tool for diagnosing dementia and widened collaboration with InHealth

Imperial Innovations Group plc (AIM: IVO, 'Innovations'), a leading technology commercialisation and investment group, welcomes the announcement by portfolio company IXICO plc (AIM: IXI), the brain health company, of the launch of its first CE marked medical device. This is to be marketed as Assessa™ and comprises a digital healthcare platform to support the diagnosis of dementia. IXICO and InHealth Limited, a major supplier of diagnostic and healthcare services to the NHS and private health providers, have also signed heads of terms to explore opportunities to provide Assessa™ and complementary services within the UK and Eire.

IXICO's Assessa™ is designed to improve the quality of the information available to healthcare professionals diagnosing dementia, thereby enabling patients to receive the right treatment and support they need sooner. Structural brain imaging (such as MRI scans) is regularly used in the diagnosis of dementia and is recommended by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) in the UK. Assessa™ provides clinically actionable information from brain scans by making precise measurements of the brain and comparing it with a reference database of normal elderly people and dementia patients of the same age.

The product launch and widened collaboration with InHealth Limited coincide with the gathering of the world's health ministers in London for the G8 Dementia Summit. Fewer than half of the 800,000 people living with dementia in the UK are estimated to have a firm diagnosis, yet receiving a timely diagnosis has been shown to extend independent life by up to 18 months. The Prime Minister's Dementia Challenge, launched in 2012, aims to raise the diagnostic rate to two thirds of sufferers being diagnosed by 2015. Traditionally, diagnosing dementia has been long and slow, with more than half of patients having to wait between one to four years to complete diagnosis.

Availability of Assessa™

In partnership with InHealth, IXICO is now starting to provide access to Assessa™ in the UK and Eire. It is anticipated that this service will incorporate a detailed assessment of the patient's cognition together with an in-depth analysis of a brain MRI scan, patient and GP liaison and support services post diagnosis. InHealth will supply patient bookings and administration services and the clinical scanning capabilities associated with either MRI or PET CT scanning which it already provides in the UK and Eire. IXICO will supply Assessa™ and appropriate cognitive assessment tools. The objective of the collaboration is to establish appropriate models of diagnostic services and service provision in a personalised care context.

IXICO is already also separately piloting the use of Assessa™ in a community setting in a collaboration with InHealth, Cambridge Cognition plc ('CamCog'), the NHS in Sussex and the Alzheimer's Society. The project partners believe the pilot can demonstrate significantly better patient outcomes and lower NHS and social care costs. Approximately £3.3 million is being invested in this study, of which £2.1 million has been secured as government grant funding from the UK Biomedical Catalyst Fund.

Maina Bhaman, Director Healthcare Ventures at Innovations, said:"We are delighted to see the launch of Assessa™. Along with its partners, IXICO will be able to offer a service incorporating a detailed assessment of the patient's cognition, together with an in-depth analysis of a brain MRI scan.

Professor Derek Hill, Chief Executive of IXICO plc, said:

"The launch of Assessa™ is an important milestone for IXICO, as a first step in our goal of providing technologies to improve the diagnosis, care and support of patients with dementia."

Enquiries:

About Imperial Innovations - www.imperialinnovations.co.uk 

Since founding in 1986, Innovations has invested in the most promising technologies from our brightest scientists. Today it is connected with four of the world's top research universities: Imperial College London, Cambridge and Oxford Universities and University College London. These centres of scientific excellence between them have a research income of over £1.3 billion per annum. Innovations supports scientist-entrepreneurs in the commercialisation of their ideas. It adds value by leading the formation of new spin-out companies, providing investment, encouraging co-investment as well as through its operational expertise. It also runs an Incubator in London that is the initial home for many of its technology spin-outs.Originally formed as the Technology Transfer office for Imperial College - a role it still carries out - Innovations is today a significant technology investor and has built a portfolio of around 90 companies. Almost £150m has been invested by Innovations and £0.5bn has been raised in total by the portfolio companies. In 2013, a £30 million loan facility was agreed with the European Investment Bank (EIB) for investment in biotech and therapeutics businesses.

Innovation invests in the most promising opportunities from whichever technology sector they arise and has built particular expertise in the key sectors of: Therapeutics, Medtech and devices, Engineering and materials and ICT.

About IXICO

IXICO, the brain health company, was founded in 2004 with a mission to translate image acquisition, management and analysis technology and know-how, which the founders had developed together, into commercial products targeting the expanding area of imaging to inform decision-making during drug development. This has resulted in commercially successful products being launched in the clinical trials (Phase 0-III) and experimental medicine markets and being readied for launch into the wider clinical diagnostic market. Since incorporation, IXICO has been contracted by seven of the top 15 global pharmaceutical companies as well as leading biotechnology companies. In October 2013, IXICO plc was admitted to trading on AIM. More information is available on www.ixico.com

About InHealth

InHealth Group is a leading provider of diagnostic and healthcare services to the NHS and private patients. InHealth has worked with NHS Trusts in the United Kingdom over the last 20 years and last year saw over 650,000 patients at over 280 locations across the UK and Ireland in both acute and primary care settings.

The company has seen excellent growth over the past few years and continues to add to their portfolio of clinical services, which now includes diagnostic services such as Endoscopy and Audiology. InHealth continues to provide more services and solutions across primary, secondary and specialist care. They continue to grow their presence in hospitals, but also, through close working relationships with GPs, they are focused on designing and delivering local services in order to deliver better patient access and outcomes.

InHealth is CQC registered, an Investor in People, carries ISO27001 accreditation for Information Security Management and has received the Health Investor award for 'Diagnostic Provider of the Year' for the past two years. More information is available on www.inhealthgroup.com.

About Assessa™

Assessa™ is a decision-support platform (based on IXICO BAND medical device that was CE-marked in March 2013) for healthcare professionals looking to diagnose dementia and detect its underlying causes. It is intended for use with elderly patients being investigated for possible memory problems and is designed to support the diagnosis of dementia and mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease or other causes. Assessa™ measures the volume of regions in the medial temporal lobe, including the hippocampus, from MRI brain scans. It provides a patient risk factor report based on the patient's age and this is compared to the distribution of normal and diseased patients to provide a better-informed decision towards diagnosis. As such, it is interpretive as the measurements are not diagnostic in isolation but rather are used in conjunction with other assessments such as cognitive tests. This has the potential to transform the diagnostic process by improving the confidence of health care practitioners when making a diagnosis, enabling them to make a more timely and accurate diagnosis, and therefore improving patient outcomes by providing quicker access to effective treatments and support. More information is available on www.myassessa.com