52North

Competition 17 - Urgent and Emergency Care

Neutropenic sepsis (NS) is a life threatening medical emergency occurring in chemotherapy patients
whose immune systems are suppressed by treatment. It kills three people in England and Wales every day.

Whenever chemotherapy patients feel unwell, NICE guidance requires immediate A&E attendance, where patients receive intravenous antibiotics, undergo full blood testing, and take up a hospital bed, all in case they have NS. This pathway has two problems: (i)~1 in 2 patients turn out never to have been at risk of NS, and did not necessarily need to go into A&E, and (ii)~ 1 in 2 patients do not receive antibiotics within the acceptable timeline (1-hour), risking lives.

Neutrocheck® is a low-cost, portable medical device and digital platform which enables patients to carry out a finger-prick blood test at home, to provide information on their risk of NS through measurement of neutrophils and CRP (a sepsis marker). The Neutrocheck® result enables doctors to
more safely and effectively triage patients.

Each year in the UK, this solution could prevent up to 50,000 A&E visits, saving ~2.4m kgs CO2eq by halving delays in antibiotic provision, save up to 400 lives, and save the NHS tens of millions of pounds.

• Raised £1 million of private funding
• Created 3 new jobs and expanded 5 existing jobs
• Involved 40 patients in testing and evaluations
• Involved 40 healthcare professionals in the development of a new clinical pathway
• Umaima Ahmad, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of 52North selected as one of Management Today’s 35 Under 35, celebrating women in business.
• Dr Ama Frimpong, Head of Product Development won the IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards 2022 and was selected as one of the WES Top 50 Women in Engineering 2022 in the Inventors and Innovators category.

April 2023

52 North health awarded funding through the Government's Innovative Devices Access Pathway (IDAP) programme