Experts in infection control at St George’s, University of London have teamed up with at-home digital healthcare solutions developers, Tachmed, to speed up the development of the company’s new at-home digital diagnostics.
Tachmed is currently developing a new diagnostic platform for a range of health conditions, using groundbreaking graphene biosensor technology. Teaming up with the experts from St George’s, University of London will help accelerate its development.
During the four-month collaboration, funded by an Innovate UK Accelerated Knowledge Transfer grant, Dr Henry Staines, senior lecturer in global health at the Institute for Infection & Immunity at St George’s, will provide critical knowledge exchange. This is expected to boost development of the technology by optimising Tachmed’s biosensor, which is required to confirm if a pathogen is present or not within a patient sample.
Dr Staines explained to Digital Health: “Essentially this role is about verifying and validating the data generated from this ground-breaking new digital diagnostic platform technology. Our expertise lies in the development of diagnostics, with a focus on infectious diseases. This aligns extremely well with Tachmed’s knowledge and use of digital health and commerce.
“In the short term, we are providing our advice and expertise to help Tachmed develop the heart of their novel diagnostics platform, the graphene biosensor, so that it functions above and beyond the levels expected by regulatory bodies. Moving forwards, we also aim to help expand the pipeline of diagnostics tests that they can provide.”
The partnership will ultimately lead to the creation of at-home diagnostic tests supported by a platform that will automatically send results straight to the patient’s healthcare practitioner, with no need for the patient to interpret the results.
Dr Staines added: “This new technology aims to make home diagnostics more effective, lower cost and easy to use.
“Remote health monitoring is still in its infancy and traditionally involves devices for measuring weight, blood pressure, oxygen levels and glucose. The Tachmed system adds quality diagnostics to this range, substantially expanding the range of health testing which can be done at home, with a direct link to your GP or hospital. This avoids unnecessary visits to the GP and can speed up treatment, particularly for those with busy lives or those who lack mobility.”
Tachmed is working towards launching the device, Tachshield, by the end of the year.
Tachmed has previously teamed up with Doctor Now in February 2023, with Doctor Now helping in trials of the Tachmed products. The findings and insights gathered have helped inform later deployments.