Innovate UK funds BNC for kidney disease sensor

The Smart Award will support further development of BNC’s proprietary technology capable of quantifying protein in urine. According to a report published in 2012 by NHS Kidney Care, kidney disease costs the NHS over £1.4 billion per annum, more than breast, lung, colon and skin cancers combined. A year later, the Kidney Health Report highlighted that every day 19 people in the UK are diagnosed with kidney failure. Behind these 19 people, many more will have a lesser degree of kidney dysfunction, called Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) that will place them at increased risk of cardiovascular disease and acute kidney injury. The NHS estimates that about 1 million cases remain undiagnosed and thus untreated. These patients need to know they are at risk and take action so that this risk can be reduced.Current point-of-care methods are semi-quantitative, and clinicians still rely on laboratory testing for assessment and monitoring of kidney disease. There is currently no device that can be used by clinicians for near-patient quantitative monitoring of kidney disease. This project innovatively modifies the technology contained in familiar pregnancy tests to deliver a quantitative test for kidney disease that can be used at near-patient settings. Moreover, the digital readout of the test enables the automatic and accurate collation of kidney function readings into a central database using mobile technology. The SMART Award will help BNC develop and test this new technology much more rapidly than would have otherwise been possible. Commenting on the win, BNC CEO David Sarphie said, “We are pleased to have won such a prestigious funding award from Innovate UK. This is our second such award this year, providing further confirmation of the value and need for the innovative technologies we are developing.

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