University of Southern Denmark

Overview:
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.
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.
Research:
The University of Southern Denmark consists of five faculties:
<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>
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.
Industry Partnerships:
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.
SDU RIO (SDU Research &amp; Innovation Organisation) supports collaboration between research, education, the business community and the public sector.

<h1 id="background">Background</h1>
Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a major cause of liver cirrhosis that is characterized by hepatic inflammation and fibrosis. Currently, liver biopsies are extensively employed for disease diagnosis. However, given the heterogeneity of the disease pathology and apparent limitations with the invasiveness and variability with liver biopsies, development of non-invasive biomarkers to diagnose and predict disease progression are highly desirable.
<h1 id="technology-overview">Technology Overview</h1>
The present invention relates to a diagnostic assay, where plasma or serum SMOC2 (SPARCrelated modular calcium-binding protein 2) levels are used as diagnostic markers of Non-Alcoholic SteatoHepatitis (NASH), more specifically for determining an inflamed liver in NASH patients to enable a selection of patients for which liver biopsies should be performed. <img src="https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.in-part.com/technologies/figures/dx4Q3PoSoeVIkWB1y9ke_denmark2.png" alt="Figure 1. Disease Overview" />
The researchers has provided proof-of-concept in a smaller patient study (comparing obese patients with NASH with obese controls), showing a significant higher level of SMOC2 in plasma from NASH patients than from people without NASH, hereby providing data supporting the invention. <img src="https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.in-part.com/technologies/figures/jb01MrTSeuFGacwjljip_denmark1.png" alt="Figure 2. POC Study Results" />
<h1 id="applications">Applications</h1>
<ul>
<li>Significant unmet need – no specific NASH biomarkers on the market </li>
<li>High patient volume<ul>
<li>Diabetes type 2</li>
<li>Obesity</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li> High volume X moderate price ‑ attractive commercial opportunity</li>
</ul>