Queen Mary researchers have partnered with innovative health tech start-up Living With on a project that could revolutionise the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and save the NHS millions of pounds every year.
Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease which affects joints on both sides of the body
The collaboration has developed a prototype AI-driven system to help clinicians optimise treatment of RA patients based on health data they have submitted via Living With's remote monitoring app.
A monitoring app for patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis required expertise in statistical modelling and AI-driven systems to be market ready. This app could be a game changer for the NHS and provide a sizeable annual saving.
"Living With and the Queen Mary team have been talking and planning for nearly two years prior to the winning of this Pump Priming grant. Without it we might still have been talking in 12 months' time, whereas we have now designed and developed a prototype product that is already proving of interest to global pharma. This grant is a very exciting step on the road to full evolution including clinical validation and commercialisation."- Chris Robson, CEO at Living With
Researchers from Queen Mary’s ground-breaking PAMBAYESIAN initiative have developed a statistical model that combines real patient data with expert knowledge to monitor changes in a patient's condition. This new approach could support clinicians to make informed decisions about patients' treatment which will result in huge savings for health services – for example, by helping to safely reduce dosages of expensive biological medicines.
The research has received £50,000 from the Queen Mary Enterprise Pump Priming award. This funding has enabled Living With to integrate an online prototype of the new model onto their existing platform, which is already used by a number of NHS trusts. Living With is now in advanced talks with a global pharmaceutical company with a view to licensing the product.
"The PPF grant has enabled us to take a very important step in getting this research into medical practice, as we have been able to work with Living With to integrate a prototype of our RA model into their online platform that is already used by a number of NHS trusts. In addition to helping us identify key areas for enhancing the research, the work on the grant will also provide the basis for a formal medical trial of the technology."- Norman Fenton, Professor of Risk and Information Management at Queen Mary and Principal Investigator on the project