Diagnostics in cardiometabolic disease

In the case of suspected heart attack, prompt intervention is essential. Accelerating diagnosis can help decrease a patient’s anxiety, reduce overcrowding in emergency room settings, and reduce costs on the healthcare system.

By using specific biomarkers healthcare professionals can improve the accuracy of heart failure diagnosis, predict future probability of an incident and help identify patients at risk of hospital readmission or death4,5. Over time, these markers can even provide insight into patients' disease progression and suggest adjustments to treatment.6-10

In people with this type of irregular heartbeat, biomarkers can inform more personalized predictions of bleeding risk, help to reduce strokes, and curtail healthcare costs.

While it can occur at any age, T1D is one of the most frequent diseases in childhood that, at present, cannot be prevented. It is life-threatening when not treated with insulin. People with type 1 diabetes can live active and fulfilling lives but only with the provision of an uninterrupted supply of external insulin, using daily injections and insulin pumps, for example.

Accounting for the vast majority (around 90%) of diabetes cases worldwide,15 T2D is characterized by reduced insulin production as well as by impaired insulin action (resistance). Type 2 diabetes can be effectively managed through adoption of healthy lifestyles (e.g., diet adaptation and increased physical activity)14 combined with medication (pills and/or injectable hormones like GLP-1 and insulin), as required. In many cases, drug treatment can be prevented or delayed with healthy lifestyles. Being a chronic condition and due to its genetic causes, T2D is likely to progress over time.

Gestational Diabetes is diabetes first detected during pregnancy. Pregnant women who develop transient gestational diabetes can have babies that are large for gestational age. This increases the risk of pregnancy- and birth-related complications for both the mother and baby whilst bearing an increased risk of developing a T2D later in life.

When patients come in with non-specific symptoms, diagnosing the cause can be difficult. The traditional way of testing uses an echocardiogram which is heavy on medical resources and can be time-consuming—time that person may not have.

We identified a special type of biomarker, the NT-proBNP, which can be used to help diagnose, assess disease severity, monitor heart failure, or help predict bleeding risk. This enhances the ability of clinicians to make the right call earlier, allowing them to improve outcomes and quality of life while also reducing the cost of care.15

Chest pain is often a tell-tale sign of a problem. When patients suspected of a heart attack arrive in the emergency department, a fast and accurate diagnosis is critical to reducing patient anxiety, avoiding overcrowding in the ED, and saving cost to the health system.

Through a combination of technical improvements and supporting the right clinical studies we have improved the way heart attacks are diagnosed around the world, as well as assessing the risk of complications after major surgery.16-18

is an irregular and often rapid heart rate which is a big (and growing) problem that puts people at risk of stroke. The primary stroke-prevention therapy is oral anticoagulants. While effective, they can increase a person’s risk of bleeding.

To help physicians gain insight into the bleeding risk of a patient, we developed a scoring method that measures the presence of specific biomarkers (Roche GDF-15, NT-proBNP and TnT-hs) that allow clinicians to better manage individual patients. This is true personalised medicine.

We envision a world where people with diabetes can live full and healthy lives, free from worrying about the daily grinds of their therapy.

That’s why we took diabetes management to the next level with an open ecosystem that integrates diabetes management solutions and services, and enables our strategy of integrated Personalised Diabetes Management (iPDM). From glucose monitoring and insulin delivery systems to one of the most popular diabetes management apps, we’re helping people to better manage their diabetes in everyday life—so they can experience true relief day and night.

For healthcare professionals, we developed digital solutions that provide deeper insights and a better understanding of the chronic condition, enabling more personalised and effective therapy adjustments which can promote better outcomes.