News & Awards
The BEST4 trial, designed to evaluate the potential of a national screening programme, started today. It seeks to explore if our Heartburn Health Check using the minimally invasive test, EndoSign, can prevent deaths from esophageal cancer when offered as a screening test to people on long-term medication for heartburn.
“This is another major step forward for our technology. The trial will evaluate the potential for a national screening programme and explore if our Heartburn Health Check using the minimally invasive test, EndoSign, can be used to prevent esophageal cancer when offered as a screening test to people on long-term medication for heartburn” said Cyted’s CEO and co-founder, Marcel Gehrung, “Our test is already deployed in over 70 hospitals and GP surgeries all across the UK and demonstrates how innovation can have a real and lasting impact on our health system, reducing waiting lists and ultimately saving lives.”
With Cyted’s non-invasive capsule sponge test continuing to prove its effectiveness at diagnosing Barret’s esophagus in the UK, the trial could pave the way for a test to be established as a routine screening programme to detect the condition, which can lead to esophageal cancer.
The trial builds on decades of research led by the Director at the Early Cancer Institute and Cyted’s co-founder, Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald. She and the team at Cyted invented and refined the capsule sponge test.
Tim Cowper, 49, a brewer from Cambridge, has had acid reflux, or heartburn, every night since he was 16. A routine health check while he was at university resulted in the shock diagnosis of Barrett’s esophagus. After his diagnosis, he has been monitored ever since. Tim said:
“I was alarmed when I was told that having Barrett’s meant having pre-cancerous cells in my gullet. Cancer is never a nice word to hear, especially when you are so young, but luckily, I’ve had my condition monitored.”
“Since my diagnosis, I’ve been going for an endoscopy at least once every three years to monitor my esophagus. It is not pleasant at all. Each time, I have a thick tube pushed down through my mouth, and I can feel every single one of the biopsies taken by the camera. Swallowing a capsule sponge is a much better experience, and I now get the test before my regular endoscopy appointment.”
The second stage of the trial, BEST4 Screening, opens in the summer and will recruit 120,000 people aged over 55 on long-term treatment for heartburn.
The multi-million-pound trial is jointly funded by Cancer Research UK and the National Institute for Health and Care Research.
The nominations recognise the entrepreneurial growth of the company, as well as the transformative impact the capsule sponge test and biomarker discovery process has had on a number of NHS sites.
From September to November, Cyted and our NHS partners were named as finalists in the following awards:
- Innovate Awards - Nominated for Outstanding Contribution to Population Health Through Innovation for the CYTOPRIME Project.
- https://www.innovatehealthcareawards.co.uk/finalists-2023
- LaingBuisson Awards - Nominated for Innovation In Health Tech.
- https://laingbuissonawards.com/the-2023-finalists/
- OBN Awards - Nominated for Best Established MedTech Company
- https://obn.glueup.com/event/obn-awards-2023-74448/2023-winners--finalists.htm
- Healthcare Honours Award - CYTOPRIME 1 Project nominated for the Outstanding innovation award alongside one NHS customer.
- https://www.healthcarehonours.com/shortlist-2023
- Barclaycard Entrepreneurship Award - Eagle Labs Innovation Award.
- https://www.barclays.co.uk/business-banking/sectors/entrepreneurs/awards/
- NHS Parliamentary Awards - One NHS customer named as finalists for The Excellence in Health Care Award for CYTOPRIME1.
- https://www.england.nhs.uk/nhs-parliamentary-awards/about/regional-winners
- HSJ Awards - Two NHS customers nominated for Modernising Diagnostics
- https://awards.hsj.co.uk/winners-2023
- HSJ Partnership Awards - One NHS customer named as finalists for Diagnostic Project of the Year for CYTOPRIME1.
- https://partnership.hsj.co.uk/finalists-2024
Four NHS sites have been named in the nominations, each using Cyted’s technology to tackle key challenges such as providing increased capacity, accessibility, and faster turnaround to improve care.
From ICB, system-wide initiatives and studies, to Trust and local level projects, the nominations demonstrate a wide range of implementations and the growing enthusiasm for capsule sponge testing.
Cyted’s CYTOPRIME1 project was recognised in a number of the nominations for both its scale and the success of the partnership between the company and the NHS sites, helping to transform endoscopy care pathways across Lancashire and South Cumbria.
The nominations add to the growing list of accolades for the company and support for capsule sponge testing seen in 2023. Cyted will continue building on this momentum in what promises to be another successful year of collaboration and innovation in 2024.
The gastrointestinal health company Cyted has received a £1 million grant from Innovate UK to launch its first major precision medicine project for diagnosis and treatment response prediction for the condition Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE).
The non-endoscopic EndoSign® platform is already widely used in the Heartburn Health Check to identify patients at risk of developing oesophageal cancer. This new programme is an important first step to increase the impact of non-endoscopic testing and make care for digestive diseases accessible to more patients.
"This grant allows us to build on our existing diagnostic technology to help many more people with undiagnosed or ongoing esophageal conditions,” said Marcel Gehrung, CEO & Co-Founder of Cyted. “Eosinophilic Esophagitis is treatable, but often undetected until a patient develops complications. Our EndoSign® platform will make a real difference to patients by decreasing the need for endoscopy and improving treatment decisions.”
EoE is a chronic inflammatory condition of the oesophagus and affects up to 1 in 1000 individuals and is responsible for a significant cost burden to healthcare systems. The condition can result in damage to the oesophagus, causing difficulty swallowing, pain, and even medical emergencies when food gets stuck. The developed test will also support clinicians in assessing a patient’s likelihood of responding to associated drug or dietary therapy, indicating the appropriate treatment for EoE patients. This will improve patient outcomes as well as reducing the time and cost associated with more invasive and expensive endoscopies.
The Innovate UK grant has been awarded as part of the Advancing Precision Medicine programme, aimed at driving UK productivity and economic growth through providing facilities and funding to test, demonstrate and evolve innovation in the health sector.
With the support of this grant, Cyted aims to use its expertise in non-endoscopic technologies and biomarker discovery to develop new tests to diagnose EoE in patients, and support treatment decisions in cases where the condition has already been diagnosed.
For more on the Innovate UK Grant, please clickhere
Cambridge, UK: Cyted, a company working on non-endoscopic diagnostics for digestive diseases, today announces that Gail Marcus has been named as the company’s Board Chair and Non-Executive Director, to support the business’s entry into the US market. She will be taking over from Will West who has served for over 3 years as Board Chair and will retain an active role on the Board.
“This milestone appointment brings an invaluable addition to the Cyted team. Gail will help drive forward work taking our minimally-invasive EndoSign® test for the pre-cancerous condition Barrett’s esophagus to patients across the US,” said Marcel Gehrung, Cyted CEO and Co-founder. “With an exceptional record of leadership in pioneering diagnostic technology companies and a deep understanding of US healthcare, she is unrivalled in terms of expertise for this post. I would also like to thank Will West for his outstanding contribution in the role and developing the organization in recent years.”
“I am excited to be leading Cyted’s expansion in the US alongside the team and determined to make sure many more physicians have the opportunity to provide convenient, accessible diagnostics to their patients,” said Marcus. “The potential to transform the way we monitor patients with chronic reflux and identify those at risk of developing cancer using minimally-invasive diagnostics is huge.”
Gail currently serves on the board of Natera (NTRA), a leading women’s health and molecular diagnostics company. She also serves on private company boards, including PathAI and Biomodal (formerly Cambridge Epigenetix). Gail is an Assistant Professor at Hofstra University in the Master’s in Health Administration program.
Prior to her current roles, Gail held senior leadership positions at CIGNA and United Healthcare and served as CEO of Caris Diagnostics, a pioneer in cancer care, and Calloway Labs, a biotechnology firm specialising in clinical toxicology laboratory services. Gail has received a DHA from the Medical University of South Carolina, an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School, an MSE in Information Sciences from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in Mathematics and Spanish from Wesleyan University.
- Technology cut burden on endoscopy services in Barrett’s patients and delivered savings for the NHS
Diagnostic technology from health company Cyted could reduce NHS endoscopy waiting lists by over 75%, an independent evaluation of a pilot deploying the minimally invasive test in primary care and community settings has found.
“The findings of this report clearly demonstrate the huge positive impact of our technology.” said Cyted CEO and Co-founder Marcel Gehrung. “They show that we can cut waiting times, deliver earlier diagnoses, and help to relieve pressure on health systems still recovering from the pandemic. By making this technology widely available in communities we can diagnose cancer earlier improving patient outcomes”.
The Unity Insights study found Cyted’s test cleared endoscopy backlogs for four hospitals, reduced burdens on endoscopy services and would deliver a positive return on investment for the NHS. It evaluated a pilot project offering surveillance for NHS patients with Barrett’s esophagus, a precursor to cancer, in the North West of England in 2022. For five months, Cyted’s capsule sponge test, a minimally invasive alternative to endoscopies, was used to monitor patients in the community.
The test was able to identify low risk Barrett's esophagus surveillance patients who could safely wait for a routine endoscopy, while allowing a subgroup of high-risk patients to be fast-tracked for urgent endoscopies. The Unity Insights report found patients undergoing surveillance were happy to have access to the alternative to endoscopies.
Read more on the Unity Insights reporthere.
The NHS pilot project, called CYTOPRIME, was designed to assess the impact of delivering capsule sponge tests in primary care and community settings and help the recovery of endoscopy services which have been under pressure since the COVID-19 pandemic. At the start of the project, the NHS North West region had the longest waitlist for endoscopy in England, with more than 50% of patients waiting over six weeks for a potentially life-saving diagnostic test.
A total of 150 patients received the capsule sponge test, cutting the number of required endoscopies by 107 and delivering a 31% fall in patients waiting more than six weeks from referral to procedure. The backlog for Barrett's surveillance endoscopy was cleared at four NHS trusts. The implementation and outcomes of the project were modelled over 12 months, and showed the project delivered a significant cost saving. The report calculated that a single local NHS Integrated Care System could save as much as £3.86m over five years by adopting the technology.
The project was funded by SBRI Healthcare in partnership with the Lancashire & South Cumbria Cancer Alliance, the Cheshire & Merseyside and Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Integrated Care Systems, the Innovation Agency (North West Coast Academic Health Science Network), Unity Insights and Medtronic.
Interested in starting capsule sponge testing in your organisation?
Please get in touch: hello@cyted.ai
The European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ESGE) has published an update to the Barett's esophagus guidelines for diagnosis and management and highlighted the high-quality evidence for capsule sponge testing.
This officially sets out guidance for practitioners and patients on using non-endoscopic, minimally-invasive cell collection, like Cyted's EndoSign®, as an alternative to endoscopy that can proactively care for oesophageal health and find oesophageal cancer earlier.
Capsule Sponge Testing in Action
This minimally-invasive procedure collects cell samples from the entire length of the esophagus, which are then analyzed. Based on the test results, healthcare professionals can efficiently triage patients. Those with concerning findings can be prioritized for urgent endoscopy, while others can be more easily monitored on a regular basis, ensuring timely intervention when needed.
Adopting Capsule Sponge Testing
For enquiries on implementing this transformative test, contact us at hello@cyted.ai
Join us in the journey towards better esophageal health, streamlined triage, and enhanced patient care.
For more on the guidelines, click here (external link).
Earlier this year the UK Health and Social Care Committee conducted an inquiry which sought to explore innovations in cancer diagnosis and treatment. By gathering evidence from a wide array of organisations and experts, it examined how these innovations can be transitioned into frontline and clinical settings.
Cyted took this opportunity to submit a written response to the inquiry detailing the potential of its diagnostics technology and was subsequently invited to present further evidence to the committee as a witness.
In July, Cyted CEO Marcel Gehrung was invited to the House of Commons to provide additional evidence in person, highlighting the importance of early intervention and cancer detection, and how we can get new diagnostic technologies to the patients who need them.
During the session, he told the Committee about how vital it is that we:
- Use new diagnostics to identify cancers as early and widely as possible to help save lives.
- Identify and remove barriers to patients taking tests so more people can access this service.
- Deliver an easily accessible Heartburn Health Check to provide walk-in tests on demand.
Cyted’s written evidence can be read in full here on the Parliament website:https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/120632/pdf/
- Heartburn Health Check to be offered to patients across England
- New evidence that Cyted’s test can save money and relieve NHS pressures
A new test to detect and help prevent early oesophageal cancer will be delivered to NHS patients from this weekend. The diagnostic company Cyted will launch the Heartburn Health Check programme as part of an NHS-funded rollout, set to benefit more than 80 locations across the UK.
Cyted has already provided 15,000 early oesophageal cancer detection tests with existing technology. Now it is launching a new UKCA and CE-marked testing device - the EndoSign® capsule sponge test – which will be deployed in both clinical and community settings.
An independent report from Unity Insights concludes that Cyted’s testing could save the NHS millions of pounds as well as significantly reduce endoscopy waiting lists. The report calculated that a single NHS Integrated Care System, of which there are 42 in total, could save as much as £3.86m over five years by adopting the technology.
Cyted’s tests are more comfortable and accessible than conducting endoscopies – the current standard of care for diagnosing and monitoring patients with the precancerous condition Barrett’s oesophagus. Widespread deployment can help cut waiting lists and ease pressures on hospitals. Oesophageal cancer is one of the most malignant cancers, with over half a million people dying from the condition globally every year.
Cyted’s new device is the next generation of capsule sponge testing, featuring improved usability that makes the test easier and faster for practitioners and more comfortable for patients. The test sees patients swallow a capsule which collects cells from the oesophagus in a process that takes less than ten minutes. It can be used to monitor patients suffering from chronic heartburn and Barrett’s oesophagus, who are at risk of developing oesophageal cancer, to ensure that cancer can be quickly detected earlier and treated.
The programme of tests to be launched this weekend has been financed by the UK government’s Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI), which provided £3.4m in grant funding to Cyted earlier this year. It will initially be offered to patients in Lancashire and South Cumbria, East of England and Wessex to both help monitor those with Barrett’s oesophagus and to identify people with persistent heartburn who are most at risk of developing cancer. This additional work will build on Cyted’s ongoing testing programme in hospitals and communities throughout the UK.
MARCEL GEHRUNG, CEO and co-founder of Cyted, said: “We want to deliver our Heartburn Health Check to as many patients as possible. Cyted’s new EndoSign® technology will ensure we can provide early cancer tests in even more communities.
“The delivery of the Heartburn Health Check in community diagnostic centres and GP clinics will make our testing even easier to access. Oesophageal cancer is a major public health concern and one of the deadliest cancers, having a survival rate of less than 15%. Simply put: faster and earlier diagnoses can save lives.”
Recognizing Excellence: Our Awards and Accolades
