Pronura Diagnostics

Physicians are incapable of differentiating between even the most prevalent neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, VCI, and FTD, in their early stages. Accuracy rates are improving, particularly for late-stage patients, but there is still no ‘Gold Standard’ for neurodegenerative disease diagnosis. Also, nearly all available tests analyze only one disease at a time, so any diagnosis patients may receive is liable to being incomplete if a secondary disease evades scrutiny. The medical sector urgently needs access to a tool that lets them know exactly what condition(s) afflict the individual, as early as possible, so they can take advantage of disease-modifying therapies suited for treating specific conditions (rather than unspecified neurodegeneration or “dementia” in general) before it’s too late for them to be effective.

Pronura Diagnostics Corp. is commercializing a device that uses eye-tracking technology to diagnose patients with industry-leading accuracy as soon as any of the diseases are present in the patient’s neurophysiology; the device is capable of scanning for all five aforementioned diseases simultaneously to mitigate incomplete as well as inconclusive diagnoses.

The diagnostic method was invented by Dr. Douglas P. Munoz, Director of the Queen’s University Centre for Neuroscience, and Head of the university’s Eye-tracking Laboratory. Graduate students Adam Palter and Matthew De Sanctis were introduced to Dr. Munoz in January 2017 while undertaking the Master of Entrepreneurship and Innovation program, also at Queen’s University. The parties agreed to collaborate for the purpose of commercializing Dr. Munoz’s invention, incorporating Pronura in June 2017.

Test-takers are asked to simply watch/enjoy videos, and follow instructions on the computer screen in front of them, while a video-based eye-tracker records their saccadic eye movements. The test was performed on hundreds of clinical patients via the Ontario Brain Institute’s $28 million “ONDRI” Clinical Trial; this database of test results facilitates implementation of machine-learning technology to objectively compare new patients’ test results against results from patients with each of the five aforementioned diseases, looking for correlated (trade secret) biomarkers.

The machine-learning classifier is being developed in-house, while Pronura is working with user-interface and industrial-design experts to create a market-ready plug-‘n-play prototype. The prototype will be subjected to rigorous double-blind evaluations to confirm the device’s claims, and to collect data to submit for Health Canada and FDA approval.

Company’s Keywords:

diagnostics, neurodegenerative disease, dementia, elderly care, health care, machine learning, eye tracking, alzheimers, parkinsons, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal dementia