Integrated Diagnostics for Early Diagnosis of Liver Disease [ID-LIVER]

Liver disease is an epidemic with up to four in ten people having health problems from their liver not working properly. A proportion of these patients develop scarring that is most commonly picked up late but which can progress without stopping to complete liver failure. It is one of the UK's largest health challenges for which we do not have answers. At present we use a wide range of single tests. These pick up disease when it is really well established or worse but do not pinpoint early disease or pick out those patients who are destined for much worse. Our project will address this lack of answers by teaming up with companies to make software that stitches together a wide range of different tests to come up with much better, much earlier answers. This would be a big breakthrough from the current 'one-size-fits-all' approach which does not work. This will allow small companies, such as Jiva.ai and Perspectum, to grow by working with university researchers in Manchester and Nottingham under the umbrella of global companies like Roche Diagnostics and GE Healthcare. This mix of skills between universities, hospitals and companies is a great way to come up with exciting breakthroughs. The three precise areas where we hope to make big discoveries are picking up very early liver problems in the community (currently they get missed); pulling together a wide range of data to help MRI scans beat large needle biopsies of the liver (which can on occasion go very wrong, like major bleeding or even death); and picking up those patients very early who might get liver cancer (at the moment liver cancer is often a death sentence because it gets picked up so late when there are no good treatments). To make sure we are successful we have got specialists who know how to develop new products in the NHS, experts to make sure the patient voice is heard, advice on developing your company, experts in working out whether the money adds up for new tests or treatments and experts in making sure good things get taken up into daily practice in the NHS.

A big marker of our success will be seeing the small and medium sized companies grow because we have created new ways of giving patients the care they need in liver disease.