The Technology
Schizophrenia (SZ) is a severe, incurable chronic psychiatric disorder with a worldwide prevalence of about 1% and a peak onset in late adolescence or early adulthood. The disorder is characterized by disturbances in the main human capabilities – perception, emotion, cognition and occupational and social functioning. Currently SZ symptoms are mainly treated with antipsychotic drugs. Treatment-resistance in SZ remains a public health problem. Clozapine is a life-saving medication for many patients with SZ, including those with suicidality and/or treatment-resistant disease and has a relatively higher adherence profile than other antipsychotic drugs, still approximately 30% of the patients do not respond to Clozapine treatment most of them developing side effects. With no available approach to predict the response of a given patient to clozapine, the current trial and error approach prior to clozapine treatment exerts a heavy toll on patients, families and society. The innovative technology aims to design an entirely novel classifier to predict clinical response/non-response of a given patient to clozapine and susceptibility to its adverse effects. The classifier is based on fingerprints of mitochondria-related parameters in peripheral blood cells, on clinical parameters and on adverse effects.
Advantages
- Novel metabolic biomarkers-based classifier to predict clinical response/non-response of a given patient to clozapine
Applications
- Decision support tool for treating schizophrenic patients
Business Development Contacts