Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) affects 37 million Americans every year, with treatment costs in excess of $120 billion a year. With an early diagnosis, CKD can often be stopped in its tracks, or at least slowed, with readily available and effective treatments. However, physicians and patients don’t have easy access to testing and test result translations — leaving many to suffer as the disease state progresses undiagnosed.
The early-stage product development and commercialization company Health Logic Interactive Inc. (TSV:CHIP.H)(OTCPK:CHYPF) is working on advanced technology to solve this problem. Health Logic Interactive has created a digitally integrated platform that will empower patients and their care providers to take control of CKD disease, prevent kidney failure and bend the cost curve for the management of CKD and other chronic diseases.
Earlier diagnosis leads to earlier treatment, which in turn leads to billions of dollars in reduced health costs as well as a more convenient, true point-of-care (POC) diagnosis in the patient’s home — which is why this new technology called MATLOC has the potential to revolutionize the CKD treatment space from the ground up.
Here are three important things to know about this novel POC lab-on-a-chip (LOC) digital diagnostic:
1. Point-of-care device technology is growing more advanced
POC-LOC testing devices effectively miniaturize the lab onto a plastic or paper chip, allowing advanced biological sample processing and analysis in miniaturized microfluidic channels. The LOC technology has major advantages in terms of integration, high throughput and ease of operation, resulting in compact, automated, low-cost devices that can be used anywhere, by anyone, for the diagnosis and assessment of chronic diseases. In addition to diagnosis, POC-LOC also makes it easier to conduct continuous monitoring with repeat testing to track treatment progress in serious conditions such as CKD.
Health Logic Interactive has laid claim to the first-mover advantage in this space as the first POC diagnostics on the market that quantitatively measures both Albumin to Creatine ratio (uACR ratio) and Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR). The company has a patent-pending chip for precise, high-sensitivity measurement of urinary albumin concentration and is on track to develop this core technology into a low-cost, digitally integrated device called MATLOC 1, measuring urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio, a key diagnostic test for kidney disease. The company will seek accelerated FDA device approval within the year.
In parallel, Health Logic is fast-tracking the development of a cutting edge, non-creatinine based chip for the measurement of glomerular filtration rate (GFR). non-creatinine is the newest and best biomarker for GFR, as it is not affected by variations in patient muscle mass, race, sex and age. Accurate measurement of both GFR and uACR together is needed for comprehensive assessment, staging and decision making in CKD. Integrated into MATLOC 2, Health Logic Interactive’s handheld reader, the device will be the first to provide simultaneous ACR and non-creatinine based GFR measurement in an affordable, handheld, digitally integrated, easy-to-use platform usable anywhere by anyone, including patients at home. MATLOC will connect to a user's smartphone and to the Health Logic virtual continual care platform, enabling not just early detection but actionable digital management for CKD.
"Our POC medical device has the ability to transfer data to an app and is, in essence, bringing the laboratory to the patient and the home,” said Dr. Claudio Rigatto, MD, co-inventor and chief medical officer of Health Logic Interactive. “The novel microfluidic LOC technology will enable enriched clinical analytics data to flow securely, and continuously improve patients’ experiences.
2. Patient care for Chronic Kidney Disease is about to change forever
As many as 90% of CKD patients don’t know they have the disease because they don’t have access to testing, leaving patients unaware asymptomatic until the disease is quite advanced. This lack of awareness delays the application of important lifestyle and pharmacologic intervention that can significantly impact disease trajectory, delaying or negating the need for dialysis and reducing cardiovascular risk and death.
Even among patients that receive care, the current diagnostic procedures for CKD are often time-consuming and inconvenient for patients, costly for providers and not applied universally to all patients. These barriers increase healthcare costs and, more importantly, are detrimental to patients’ health-related quality of life and health outcomes.
A POC device that can rapidly and cheaply measure urine ACR and eGFR can provide meaningful prognosis to patients within minutes using prediction equations developed by its founders, the Kidney Failure Risk Equation. Low-risk patients can be treated and monitored cautiously, and high-risk patients can receive more intensive specialist care. This risk-based approach applied at scale to the population will meaningfully impact public health in terms of CKD outcomes – reducing costs by aligning resources with risk and, more importantly, reducing and delaying the need for dialysis.
At the patient level, MATLOC 2 will have a huge impact on quality of life and quality of care because it provides access to testing and translation of the test results into actionable treatment decisions. Patients and providers alike will be empowered to take control of CKD and arrange much easier and quicker treatment.
3. Leadership and experience of the design team is key to success
Health Logic Interactive is creating a roadmap for future applications of microfluidics and POC-LOC outside of CKD because the platform is highly adaptable. Chronic disease states such as lung disease, heart disease and cancer diagnostics may be made easier by applying this convenient, low-cost and flexible technology to the healthcare space.
"The old laboratory testing model is dying, and a new individualized and home-centered model is being born," said Dr. Francis Lin, PhD, lead inventor of the technology. Lin has 20-years’ experience in the LOC space and holds multiple LOC patents. “This new model will require radical changes in how we provide lab testing at POC. Our proprietary LOC platform will provide transformative, accessible and affordable POC tests for chronic diseases.”
Prevention, Early Detection, Patient Success — All from MATLOC
Starting with CKD, a disease that affects 15% of Americans, Health Logic Interactive plans to implement a technology that can save lives, lower costs and improve patient quality of life. With time, this adaptable and flexible technology can be applied to other disease states, allowing physicians to deliver the highest possible quality of care and convenience to the patients they serve.
Click here to learn more about Health Logic Interactive and the MATLOC platform.