Our degradation modelling workflows enhance the accuracy of pathology tests on at-home collected samples, broadening the scope of tests that can be reliably analysed on self collected samples.
This opens up the opportunity to provide pathology testing services through home collection and offer patients and consumers access to these services in a convenient and accessible manner.
As demand for at-home testing continues to grow, so too does the need for accurate and reliable testing solutions. Ensuring that your lab can produce accurate tests from a sample that has been shipped through the post is a constant challenge and has limited the range of tests available for home collection to those biomarkers that are stable in these shipping environments.
Drop Bio's sample degradation modelling workflow captures data on the shipping conditions that samples experience between the home and the lab. Utilising this data, we provide advanced quality assessments by matching each sample against our degradation database and enable improved test accuracy through our degradation modelling bias correction which determines the impact of sample transit bias on test results and accurately predicts test values at the time of collection.
The system enables labs to expand the range of tests they can accurately offer on at-home collected samples, reduce failure rates through improved and more adaptive quality control criteria and manage the risks associated with standard courier shipments.
Samples that have been self collected in the home are shipped back to laboratories using standard post or courier services as cold-chain or expedited services are too costly for most applications of home collection. In these environments the sample can be exposed to a wide and varying set of conditions on its journey back to the lab, which can sometimes be 3 to 4 days long. During this period of shipping the sample is degrading, ie. the quality of the sample is worsening over time.
When this shipped sample is analysed in the lab the extent of degradation will have an impact on the test result, ie. it may not produce the same result as when the sample was collected. We call this degradation induced test bias and it describes the difference in the test results between:
Test result 1. If the sample was analysed immediately when it was collected and,
Test result 2. If the sample was analysed in a degraded state after shipping to the laboratory.
The difference between these two results is critical when assessing the potential to offer a test for home self collection. If the biomarker in question has significant degradation induced test bias then it may not be appropriate for home collection as there is lower confidence in producing an accurate test result.
For this reason the current range of tests available for home collection is quite limited as it restricted to those biomarkers that are stable enough in these shipping environments.
Overcoming the challenge of degradation induced test bias creates a massive opportunity by enabling more tests to be available for home collection and opening up the potential use cases and patient populations that could benefit from the technology.
At Drop Bio we have pioneered a methodology to solve the problems posed by degradation induced bias, enabling accurate test results to be produced on self collected samples across a broad range of pathology tests.
Through the development of a large, proprietary sample degradation database and machine learning approaches we have developed a degradation model library and workflow that describes how samples degrade and produce test result bias. We use this system to perform three key functions:
1. Perform sample quality assessments when a sample enters the laboratory and provide bias and quality control checks.
2. Utilise our degradation models to calibrate test results for the calculated degradation induced test bias, improving the accuracy of test results, equivalent to if the sample was tested immediately.
3. Determine the parameters in which a test can be offered as an at-home collection and work with laboratories to take these tests to market.
Drop Bio's degradation modelling technology creates new opportunities for the at-home testing industry by enabling more economical, higher quality, and broader testing capabilities for organisations in condition monitoring, remote patient care, clinical trials, consumer health, insurance and population screening.
