14th July 2020

Roche wins funding to improve early diagnosis in major diseases

Roche Diagnostics UK & Ireland is part of three consortia that have each won government funding provided through UK Research and Innovation’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to take forward projects aimed to revolutionise patient care and improve early diagnosis in key disease areas including cancer, thoracic and liver diseases. 

The awards – made under the ‘Enabling Integrated Diagnostics for Early Detection’ strand of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund – include projects from across the UK, taking in research being led by the University of Oxford, the University of Manchester, and Queen’s University Belfast.

Each project includes partnerships working across academia, medicine and the medical technology industry to help tackle some of the greatest industrial and societal challenges today.

Geoff Twist, managing director UK & Ireland, Roche Diagnostics said: “We are thrilled with these funding awards, because it gives us the opportunity to work towards ground-breaking innovation in early diagnosis and because working in partnership is vital to achieve success in the health system. By bringing together the collective knowledge and expertise of these academic, medical and industry partners, these projects have the potential to impact patient care globally through new diagnostic solutions in cancer as well as thoracic and liver disease.”

The Oxford project – The Integration and Analysis of Data using Artificial Intelligence to Improve Patient Outcomes with Thoracic Diseases (DART) – is focussed on lung cancer. A team has been assembled from academia, industry, charity and the NHS to integrate data from diagnostic technologies in new and revolutionary ways using artificial intelligence algorithms. DART will combine clinical, imaging and molecular data using AI algorithms with the aim of more accurately and quickly diagnosing and characterising lung cancer with fewer invasive clinical procedures. This aims to enable the earlier diagnosis of lung cancer, and increased patient survival, as well as time and cost savings to the NHS. DART will also link to data from primary care to better assess risk in the general population to refine the right at-risk individuals to be selected for screening.

Professor Fergus Gleeson, chief investigator for The Integration and Analysis of DART at The University of Oxford said: “The novel linking of diagnostic technologies, patient outcomes and biomarkers using AI has the potential to make a real difference to how people with suspected lung cancer are investigated. By differentiating between cancers and non-cancers more accurately based on the initial CT scan and blood tests, we hope to remove the delay and possible harm caused by repeat scans and further invasive tests. If successful, this has the potential to reduce patient anxiety and diagnose cancers earlier to improve survival and save the NHS money.”

The Manchester project – Integrated Diagnostics for Early Diagnosis of Liver Disease (ID-LIVER) – aims to address one of the UK’s biggest health challenges by bringing together thirteen partners to help diagnose liver disease earlier. This project will address the challenge by teaming up with companies to make software that stitches together a wide range of different tests to help diagnose patients sooner. This would be a big breakthrough from the current ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, which does not work for every patient. This project also involves a partnership with academic researchers in Manchester and Nottingham under the umbrella of the NAVIFY platform which is being co-developed by Roche Diagnostics and GE Healthcare.

Professor Neil Hanley, director of research and innovation at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, and the ID-LIVER primary investigator, said: “I am thrilled that we have won this Innovate UK award, bringing together our best researchers in the university, NHS and technology sector. This would not have been possible without the research and research and development (R&D) support of global leaders, Roche Diagnostics and GE Healthcare and the enthusiasm of our SME partners. Transforming this aspect of healthcare is particularly important for the population of Greater Manchester as we have one of the UK’s highest rates of advanced liver disease”.

The final project – The ACTIONED Consortium: integrAted moleCular soluTIons fOr diagNostics and Early Detection in Belfast – has seen Roche Diagnostics enter into a research collaboration with the Precision Medicine Centre of Excellence at Queen’s University Belfast and Sonrai Analytics to integrate laboratory results from tissue and plasma samples through genomic-based and bioinformatic analysis of cancer samples in a single laboratory operation. The collaboration will create interconnectivity through artificial intelligence algorithms across a spectrum of molecular tests, quality assessments and image analysis to allow these technologies to work together seamlessly.

Dr. Manuel Salto-Tellez, director of the Queen’s Precision Medicine Centre of Excellence and professor and chair of Molecular Pathology at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), said:

“Working with Roche as a world leader in diagnostics and Sonrai Analytics, a Belfast-based small enterprise spinoff of QUB, will enable the creation of a molecular pathology laboratory workflow for the future of cancer patient care. New diagnostic tests, clinical decision support and data analytics offered through this collaboration and funded by Innovate UK and Roche will have the potential to change outcomes for cancer patients.”

Ben Newton, general manager, Oncology, at GE Healthcare added: “We are delighted to be working with Roche, Oxford University, Manchester University and our other partners on these projects – we believe in the power of partnerships in improving health outcomes and the transformative potential this partnership has to improve the early identification and treatment of liver and lung disease and cancers at scale in the UK.”