University of Southern Denmark

<p><strong>Overview:</strong></p>
<p>The University of Southern Denmark welcomed the first students onto the campus in Odense in September 1966, and things have been developing by leaps and bounds ever since. SDU now have five faculties with more than 32,000 students, almost 20% of whom are from abroad, and more than 4,000 employees distributed across our main campus in Odense and regional campuses in Slagelse, Kolding, Esbjerg and Sønderborg.</p>
<p>SDU conducts world-class research and are one of the top fifty young universities in the world. Every day more than 2,000 researchers and 32,000 students build on the university’s reputation as a centre of academic excellence.</p>
<p><strong>Research:</strong></p>
<p>The University of Southern Denmark consists of five faculties:</p>
<ul>
<li>Faculty of Engineering</li>
<li>Faculty of Health Sciences</li>
<li>Faculty of Science</li>
<li>Faculty of Business and Social Sciences</li>
<li>Faculty of Humanities</li>
</ul>
<p>Every faculty consists of several departments, where the departments have a noticeable academic and economic independence and responsibility. Together departments and centres cover a wide range of research fields and educational opportunities.</p>
<p><strong>Industry Partnerships:</strong></p>
<p>SDU works purposefully to create dialogue between the university’s researchers and the surrounding society. To promote and make communication and knowledge exchange visible, faculties cooperate with various external parties. These activities are organised in centres. The centres serve to promote special purposes in research, education or knowledge exchange.</p>
<p>SDU RIO (SDU Research &amp; Innovation Organisation) supports collaboration between research, education, the business community and the public sector.</p>


<h1 id="background">Background</h1>
<p>Considering that 25% of the world population has fatty liver disease, health providers face the challenge of not having access to neither affordable nor easy diagnostic tests to accurately detect liver fibrosis. Consequently, too few patients with advanced fibrosis are correctly diagnosed.</p>
<p>Many of the alternatives that exists on market already are blood sample based bio markers such as FIB4-index, FORNS, APRI score, or the ELF test, however, these alternatives’s precision can variate and scores lower or equally compared to the LiverTrail. Furthermore the cost of requisitioning these blood tests lies several times above the cost of the LiverTrail analysis.</p>
<p>The other alternative to the LiverTrail algorithm is elastography, eg. FibroScan or a liver biopsy which requires costly allocation of resources such as equipment and trained personnel. The elastography scores comparatively slightly better than LiverTrail, while the liver biopsy is the golden standard but requires invasive maneuvers which aren’t preferable for the patient or healthcare society.</p>
<h1 id="technology-overview">Technology Overview</h1>
<p>LiverTrail has developed a diagnostic tool that detects hidden liver damage in ALD and NAFLD patients. The algorithm evaluates the degree of liver fibrosis by analyzing several patient-specific variables. As the app calculates a patient’s risk of having significant alcoholic fibrosis and the accuracy of the risk prediction, LiverTrail assists healthcare professionals in the referral of the right patients to the hospitals at the right time.</p>
<p>High quality heterogeneous scientific data from 5,000 patients will generate the basis for advanced diagnostic algorithms. SDU researchers have developed the first version of LiverTrail, which contains 197 algorithms based on combinations of age and nine routine blood tests. Currently the researchers are working on further development and validation of app algorithms, and collecting further data for software proof-of-concept (end-date 2022) and for the development of the intelligent pattern recognition through machine learning in version 2.0.</p>
<p><img src="https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.in-part.com/figures/a5mKy9QhHclkJ75l7Bwy_livertrail1.png" alt="Figure 1: How LiverTrail works" /></p>
<h3 id="stage-of-development">Stage of Development</h3>
<p>SDU have a Minimal Viable Product with a strong academic background. SDU have established collaboration with the Department of Biochemistry in the Region of Southern Denmark. The current product is based on statistically calculated algorithms. Training of a neural network to offer similar functionality is ongoing.</p>
<h3 id="ip">IP</h3>
<p>A patent application based on the way LiverTrail is designed and the underlying statistical model has been filed with EPO.</p>
<h1 id="benefits">Benefits</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Optimize healthcare resources</strong> - LiverTrail assists healthcare professionals in referring patients with advanced fibrosis to specialists in time and reducing over-diagnosis, which optimize the use of healthcare resources</li>
<li><strong>Decrease morbidity and mortality</strong> - To identify patients with advanced liver fibrosis at an early stage improves quality of life and decreases mortality</li>
<li><strong>Interpretation and clinical guidance</strong> - LiverTrail is the first tool to provide interpretation of liver fibrosis and clinical guidance in addition to detecting the presence of liver fibrosis</li>
</ul>
<h1 id="applications">Applications</h1>
<p>Can be used by GPs and hospital doctors alike to identify patients in need of intervention to prevent Liver Disease.</p>
<h1 id="opportunity">Opportunity</h1>
<p>A spin-out has been formed to further commercialise LiverTrail (<a href="https://www.livertrail.com/">https://www.livertrail.com/</a>) and is currently seeking licensing partners.</p>
