It is estimated that 33.4m people within the WHO European region suffer from major depression each year, and around 7m suffer from bipolar disorder. The separation of these two groups for appropriate treatment is very challenging because patients with an underlying bipolar disorder typically present with depressive symptoms that are indistinguishable from those of MDD. The psychiatrists surveyed by Psyomics explained that the diagnosis of BD is particularly challenging for those under 35, where symptoms of hypo(mania) are less likely to be reported. This is compounded by time-pressures on doctor’s initial assessment, meaning that these patients are typically likely to be initially diagnosed with depression and treated with antidepressants (5.21m antidepressant prescriptions were made in London last year).
Overall, around 40% of all patients with an underlying bipolar disorder are initially misdiagnosed with depression and prescribed antidepressant monotherapies (Knežević & Nedić., 2013). On average it takes over 7.5 years for the correct diagnosis to be reached (Ghaemi et al., 1999, and 2012) (BipolarUK survey of 706 patients)
This misdiagnosis has detrimental consequences for both the individual patients and the healthcare system. Antidepressant monotherapies are ineffective in the treatment of BD and furthermore they are known to lead to an increased risk of anti-depressant induced mania, rapid cycling and suicide attempts among these patients, all of which lead to an increased rate of hospitalisation and healthcare costs. For instance, Yerevanian et al., 2007 reported that the rate of suicide events was over 7 times higher in BD patients receiving an antidepressant monotherapy in comparison to those receiving mood stabilisers.
Psyomics will reduce this rate of misdiagnosis by providing doctors and psychiatrists with a simple two stage blood-spot diagnostic that will indicate the risk of bipolar disorder vs MDD and therefore the most appropriate treatment strategy and clinical care pathway for that patient. The diagnostic will be based on a biomarker panel of 20 proteins that has been recently discovered by the Cambridge Centre for Neuropsychiatric Research (CCNR) and published in the journal of Brain, Behaviour and Immunity (Haenisch et al., 2015). The principle investigator of the CCNR, Professor Sabine Bahn, is a co-founder of Psyomics, and Psyomics has completed a licence agreement for 6 biomarker patents from the CCNR, as well as a framework agreement, which gives Psyomics exclusive rights to future IP generated by the group. Psyomics will continue to work closely with the CCNR through validation of the identified biomarker panel and development of the diagnostic.
This feasibility study investigated the commercial viability of this project.
