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Lead Indication: Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH)
Inflammation is the natural response to some underlying diseases and over time chronic inflammation can lead to fibrosis or scar tissue in the affected organs. One example of this is NASH, in which fat in the liver is associated with inflammation and injury to liver cells, which in the most severe cases can lead to cirrhosis (severe scarring). NASH impacts 16 million people in the U.S. and 100 million people worldwide.
NASH is currently diagnosed via needle liver biopsy, an invasive procedure that can give misleading results due to the heterogeneity of damage within the liver. From a simple blood draw, Glympse’s noninvasive biosensors can accurately diagnose NASH by measuring changes in liver-associated protease activity. This can be used not only to diagnose the disease, but can also be repeated to monitor disease progression and response to therapy.
Lead Indication: Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC)
Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide; there is a critical unmet need to develop precise diagnostics to monitor the course of disease and response to treatment. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common form of liver cancer, with over 500,000 cases diagnosed worldwide each year.
Protease activity is altered in both tumors and in the tumor microenvironment. Glympse can measure this aberrant protease activity to detect HCC in its earliest stages, when the patient has the highest likelihood of successful treatment. Longitudinal monitoring using the Glympse test can inform disease progression as well as assess the biological response to therapy. This provides oncologists with clinically actionable data to inform a patient’s treatment plan.
Autoimmune diseases are a class of conditions in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue, often causing severe pain and swelling, among other symptoms. There are approximately 80 different autoimmune diseases that, combined, affect about 4% of the world’s population.
Autoimmune diseases can be particularly challenging to diagnose, often requiring several tests and a holistic evaluation of symptoms. In many types of autoimmune diseases, protein activity has been linked to the autoimmune attack processes. Glympse’s tunable biosensors can be utilized to determine the presence and severity of autoimmune disease. This would lead to an expedited diagnosis of individual conditions, allowing for patients to start treatment sooner and improving outcomes overall.
