Meet Dr Steven Chance, the Founder and CEO of Oxford Brain Diagnostics, the company “bridging the gap between life and death”, at the forefront of early stage Alzheimer’s diagnosis technology.
Oxford Brain Diagnostics is an Oxford University spin out that has developed unique algorithms and software, collectively called Cortical Disarray Measurement (CDM) that analyse MRI brain imaging data, giving clinicians, pharmaceutical companies and Biotechs unprecedented insights on a cellular level. The patented technology, utilising over 10 years of research, is used for the early detection of Alzheimer's disease, and also has the ability to track the disease's progression.
Global estimates suggest that 416 million people around the world are on the Alzheimer’s disease continuum, and yet there is currently no reliable way to test for AD, essential for discerning appropriate treatment. Additionally, CDM would give clinical trials the ability to more successfully diagnose and understand the patient cohort, allowing them to reliably determine the efficacy of the drug or treatment.
With their Series A round on the horizon, we spoke to the founder, Dr Steven Chance about his journey developing CDM, founding Oxford Brain Diagnostics and his future plans for the company.
“It sounds quite dramatic, but my decision to develop CDM could be described as an attempt to bridge the gap between life and death. I did my PhD in Oxford, looking at two technologies. One was looking through the microscope at tissues dissected from the brains of people who had died with disease or without disease, looking at the differences on a cellular level. The other was looking at MRI brain scans of the living and analysing in real time the changes within their brains as they were affected by disease. The frustrating gap between these technologies was that the detailed information you can see through the microscope was just not available from MRI scans. I wanted to find a way to gain access to that cellular data within the lifespan of the patient, so we could actually help them.”
OBDs primary commercial objective has always been to provide clinical diagnostics solutions to hospitals, a goal that looks set to become reality as their technology has received FDA Breakthrough Device status, prioritising their application for regulatory approval in the US.
“The Breakthrough Device status means that the FDA has not only recognised the value of the science but it is also validation for the potential of clinical use.”
While they wait for regulatory approval, analysis has already been conducted into the distribution of US hospitals, target states and distribution of the elderly who will be more at risk of neurodegenerative conditions,
Additionally, they are already gaining commercial traction with other clients across the globe.
“I think I’m most proud of having gained really good commercial traction even at this early stage because a lot of R&D companies don’t achieve that. We’ve taken a very proactive approach and have received really good uptake with pharmaceutical companies, in some cases very big pharmaceutical companies paying six figure sums to do exploratory work with us but also we have now progressed to being an endpoint for a Phase 2 AD clinical trial for one of the big Biotech firms in the USA.”
This is “only the beginning” of the potential of the Cortical Disarray Measurement technology. While Oxford Brain Diagnostics are currently focused on dementia, specifically Alzheimer's disease, the technology is applicable to an entire range of neurological diseases. Their pharmaceutical dealings include a platform sale for Parrkinson’s disease and as the company grows, they plan to launch services in conditions such as Multiple Sclerosis.
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing though as Steven elaborates on the challenge of building the perfect team.
“Getting the team together is essential and I brought in a real commercial team that had all the strengths that complement each other - I think that’s a major challenge that had to be overcome quite early on”
“I spent some time pulling together the leadership team in the company. Our Chairman, Andrew Barker has been involved with previous successful Oxford University imaging spin outs, for example, intelligent ultrasound and currently with Brainomix. So he has a lot of experience in this space and understands about the challenges that are faced when selling into hospital systems and so forth with these technologies”
“My Chief Science Officer is Dr Ged Ridgway, he has many years experience really focussed on imaging dementia - it’s his fundamental research area and he’s worked in Cambridge, London, Oxford all previously”
“My Chief Technology Officer, Ian Hardingham actually started a computer game company when he first stepped out of doing computer science at Oxford University, which was successful but he wanted to get into some more serious technology. Coming from that experience of understanding how to get something to work through the internet, across the world, in the cloud - he’s brought all that expertise to our software.”
“Finally, my Chief Commercial Officer, Omar Ehsan, has spent more than 25 years selling into pharma companies so he has really been a lynchpin in terms of gaining that early commercial traction.”
The experience of the Oxford Brain Diagnostics team is what has generated the vital difference between CDM and the other technologies in this space. Specifically Steven emphasises the importance of his research work at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Oxford University neuropathology lab, spanning over 15 years.
“It’s important to know that Alzheimer’s disease is only a confirmed diagnosis at the post-mortem autopsy stage and it is the neuropathologist that provides that confirmatory assessment; until then, there is only a probable diagnosis - wrong 10%-20% of the time. What we did is we designed a technology built on that post-mortem neuropathology - we worked backwards and brought that process forwards into life. Very few, in fact I don’t think any other technologies out there have that kind of essential foundation.”
“A lot of new methods tend to approach things using AI, feeding MRI scans into machine learning algorithms. We have patented algorithms uniquely designed for this purpose based on the foundations of post-mortem neuropathology. These aren’t concepts that can purely be found or discovered by AI. There just isn’t enough post-mortem MRI data out there in the world for someone to discover the same algorithms or insights using an AI approach. ”
“Other technologies attempt to use the old-fashioned or traditional assessment of looking at brain size and volume which is the typical way people have used MRI scans in the past. As the neurodegenerative process happens at the cellular scale, there must be a huge amount of damage for that to scale up to something you can see as a sort of overall reduction in brain size.”
CDM assesses both the quantity and quality of brain tissue, enabling them to detect early markers and indicators of future change. It also means they have the “resolution to spot the differences in patterns across the brain structure” allowing them to qualify the stage that the patient is at, as well as differentiate between different kinds of dementia such as Alzheimers compared to frontotemporal dementia.
“Many other techniques purely don’t have this capability which is essential for accurate diagnosis and therefore appropriate treatment”
Looking forward, Oxford Brain Diagnostics have clear objectives as they shift into their growth phase.
“We want to achieve regulatory approval which will launch our clinical sales, particularly with the FDA in the United States. We will continue to follow that on with Japan and Europe where we have had, in some cases, surprisingly good traction setting up pilot projects.”
“We want to build on the existing Pharma and Biotech success by continuing those sales and expanding them to other neurodegenerative diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis”
“We want to gain clinical acceptance, so we are establishing pilots with hospitals in Japan, in the US, we also have an NIHR funded project here which is nice additional undiluted funding, helping to establish us within the UK hospital and NHS system”
“In the broader scope, we would look to our philosophy - rethinking brain health - and that is because the technology itself applies not just to neurodegenerative conditions but also potentially to psychiatric conditions, neurodevelopmental conditions, these are things like schizophrenia or autism. I’ve done work in those areas previously and we know we have the data, what's striking is that 25% of the entire world’s population will encounter one of these diseases in the course of their lifespan. We want to tackle this global challenge.”
Pictured Dr Steven Chance, CEO of Oxford Brain Diagnostics outside their offices