Chronic diseases represent one of the main challenges facing healthcare systems worldwide, both in terms of patient outcomes and economic sustainability. Among them, heart failure is a leading cause of hospitalisation in elderly populations and a major driver of healthcare costs. Despite significant therapeutic advances, heart failure management still relies heavily on symptoms and infrequent laboratory testing, resulting in delayed treatment adjustments, avoidable hospital readmissions, and increased strain on healthcare systems.
Effective heart failure management requires the regular monitoring of multiple blood biomarkers reflecting cardiac function, kidney function, and electrolyte balance. However, today’s solutions are largely hospital-based, expensive, and poorly adapted to decentralized or community care settings. As a result, most patients are managed outside hospitals without access to timely, actionable biological information, forcing clinicians to balance treatment efficacy against safety with limited data.
The CardioCap project addresses this unmet need by developing the first portable, multiplex point-of-care blood testing platform designed for heart failure therapy management. Using a single finger-prick blood sample, CardioCap is designed to simultaneously measure four key blood biomarkers required for clinical decision-making. By providing results in under ten minutes, the platform enables faster and more precise treatment adjustments in community and home-care settings.
The project’s overall objective is to develop, validate, and prepare for regulatory approval a scalable point-of-care diagnostic device that enables frequent, affordable, and decentralized biomarker monitoring. CardioCap is built on a proprietary sensor technology that integrates proteins, ions, and metabolites on a single disposable strip, combined with a reusable reader and a connected data infrastructure. This approach aims to replicate, for complex chronic diseases, the impact that glucose meters had on diabetes management.
Beyond heart failure, the project lays the foundation for a broader diagnostic platform capable of expanding to other chronic conditions requiring multiplex biomarker monitoring. By shifting biological testing closer to patients and caregivers, CardioCap contributes to improved clinical outcomes, reduced hospitalizations, and more sustainable healthcare delivery, in line with European priorities on innovation, digital health, and decentralized care.
