MediSieve have been awarded a grant worth £150,000 by the National Institute of Health Research to perform the first clinical studies of its magnetic blood filtration device.
The company, best known for the development of a magnetic drug-free malaria treatment, is working to develop new interventions for a number of other blood-borne diseases, including sepsis and leukaemia.
This award has come as part of the i4i Connect scheme, developed as part of the UK Government's Accelerated Access Programme, which helps to connect promising medical research with funding.
Worth a total of £150,000 over a 12-month period, the award will enable MediSieve to perform the very-first human testing of the device at a hospital in London in order to validate the safety of the procedure.
It is a potential precursor to a larger grant after the progress of the research has been assessed, with more follow-on funding a possibility to help accelerate MediSieve up its development pathway.
SMEs have told us that there is a gap in funding both in the early stage of development and for completed projects that do not have all the data to effectively access the follow-on funding marketplace
George Frodsham, founder and chief executive of MediSieve, said: "It's absolutely fantastic to be awarded this grant from the NIHR, which will provide £150,000 of invaluable funding crucial to our work.
“First-in-man clinical studies are a huge milestone for any new medical technology and we’re really excited to be able to take this step and move closer to our goal of providing doctor’s with a tool with which to clean blood and treat all sorts of blood-borne diseases.”
Martin Hunt, NIHR i4i programme director, added: "SMEs have told us that there is a gap in funding both in the early stage of development and for completed projects that do not have all the data to effectively access the follow-on funding marketplace. i4i Connect will support teams through either of these stages of development with a fast turnaround of funding, which is vital for SMEs needing to maintain momentum."
First-in-man clinical studies are a huge milestone for any new medical technology and we’re really excited to be able to take this step and move closer to our goal of providing doctor’s with a tool with which to clean blood and treat all sorts of blood-borne diseases
MediSieve’s device utilises a revolutionary approach to fighting disease.
In malaria, magnets are used to filter malaria infected cells directly from a patient’s blood by exploiting the cells’ naturally-occurring magnetic properties, before the clean blood re-enters their systems.
Crucially, this technique is impervious to resistant strains of the disease as it is drug-free, combatting another potentially-devastating problem in the future.
The company is also currently developing magnetic particles which bind to specific targets in the bloodstream, enabling its magnetic blood filtration technology to be expanded to treat a far-greater range of diseases.
