Ixico Regulatory News (IXI)

IXICO announces launch of dementia care digital platform with The Northern Health Science Alliance Network

30 April 2015, IXICO plc (Ticker: IXI) ('IXICO' or the 'Company'), the brain health company, today announces the launch of a digital platform ('Project Cygnus') to support patients with the diseases that cause dementia. IXICO is the lead partner in the project, working alongside The Northern Health Science Alliance Network ('NHSA'), several NHS Trusts in the North of England and MRC Technology. The project is part-funded by Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board).

The goal of the project is to introduce gold-standard integrated dementia care practices in key centres in Northern England by building a collaborative network and a scalable digital platform. It will bring together partners from healthcare and social care, academia, industry, and the charitable sectors and will cover both the diagnosis and post-diagnosis patient pathways. It plans to enhance current practices by either complementing them (e.g. by collecting 'real world' patient reported outcomes related to existing interventions), combine existing data into more meaningful and actionable information (e.g. stratification of patients to the most appropriate post-diagnostic treatment and support) or propose new digitally-supported interventions and resources, including Assessa® and MyBrainBook®, IXICO's digital dementia diagnosis and patient support platform. The project aims to engage approximately 500 people with cognitive impairment and dementia in the study initially. Patient involvement in the research and platform development will contribute to ensuring the study is focussed on person-centred care, ultimately supporting people with dementia and their caregivers to live well and independently at home. As well as directly benefiting patients, Cygnus provides an infrastructure to facilitate the development and evaluation of improved treatments and care.

Professor Derek Hill, Chief Executive of IXICO, commented:

'Project Cygnus is designed to directly impact the lives of those living with dementia and their carers. It will improve their quality of life, while simultaneously providing a platform that can collect the data needed to support development and evaluation of new and better treatments (drug and non-drug).'

Professor Alistair Burns, National Clinical Director for Dementia, NHS England, said:

'Project Cygnus is a great example of industry working together with health and social care to improve the lives of people with dementia.'

Professor Ian Greer, Chairman of the North Health Science Alliance, added:

'This is an incredibly important project for the North and the UK, we need to be able to understand the impact of different standards of care, adjust for the best possible outcomes and adopt at scale. The NHSA partnership represents a unique partnership of leading NHS Trusts, world-class universities working across a 15 million patient population in the North of England. The NHSA is perfectly positioned to act as a single point of contact for high impact health research.'

Dr David Pardoe, Head of Growth Projects, MRC Technology said:

'As a charity, MRC Technology strives to work with relevant partners from patient groups, academia and industry to help find solutions where there are unmet patient needs. Through Cygnus, dementia patients will benefit from our experience in creating the Dementia Consortium and Neurodegeneration Medicines Acceleration Programme.'

About the NHSA

The Northern Health Science Alliance Ltd (NHSA) is a new partnership established by the leading Universities and NHS Hospital Trusts in the North of England to improve the health and wealth of the region by creating an internationally recognized life science and healthcare system. The NHSA links eight universities and eight NHS Teaching Trusts with the newly formed Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs). Together the Alliance and the four Northern AHSNs cover a patient population of over 15 million people. The NHSA acts as a single portal bringing together research, health science innovation and commercialisation to provide benefits for researchers, universities, hospitals, patients as well as commercial partners.

More information is available on: www.thenhsa.co.uk

About MRC Technology

MRC Technology is an independent life science medical research charity, offering professional services to organisations within the academic, charity, biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors globally. Services include IP management and research and development for diagnostics, small molecules and therapeutic antibodies. MRC Technology bridges the gap between basic medical research and commercialisation, helping early discoveries progress to clinical application. Four of MRC Technology's projects have led to approved drugs (Tysabri®, Actemra®, Entyvio®, Keytruda®) and the company has a strong pipeline in development. MRC Technology has been independent from the UK's Medical Research Council (MRC) since 2000.

More information is available on: www.mrctechnology.org 

About IXICO

IXICO, the brain health company, uses its innovative and proprietary digital health technologies to help those involved in researching and treating serious diseases to make rapid, informed decisions targeted at improving patient outcomes. IXICO has significant experience working with global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies supporting clinical studies in the field of neuro-degenerative disorders including Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, other causes of dementia and Multiple Sclerosis.

More information is available on www.ixico.com 

Enquiries:

IXICO plc

Derek Hill, CEO

Susan Lowther, CFO

Charles Spicer, VP Corporate Development

+44 20 3763 7499

Peel Hunt LLP (Nominated Adviser and Broker)

James Steel

Clare Terlouw

+44 20 7418 8900

Daniel Stewart & Company (Joint Broker)

Martin Lampshire

David Coffman

+44 207 776 6550

FTI Consulting Limited (Investor Relations)

Simon Conway

Matthew Moss

Ben Atwell

+44 20 3727 1000