UK SME, a developer of digital health solutions, has developed a long COVID symptom assessment and monitoring tool and seeks partners via a distribution services agreement and/or commercial agency agreement

There was an estimated 91.6 million cases of COVID-19, 1.96 million deaths and 50.6 million patients recovered. The UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimate that 1 in 5 people testing positive for COVID-19 exhibit symptoms for a period of 5 weeks or longer, and around 1 in 10 people testing positive exhibit symptoms for 12 weeks or longer. Scaling up to consider the World Health Organisation’s average 4.5+ million new cases a week in December 2020, not accounting for those who do not receive a test, there will be an alarming number of new patients with COVID symptoms persisting longer than 5 and 12 weeks or more. The original paper-based validated questionnaire developed by clinical researchers at a leading UK University has been recognised as one of the world’s first resources capable of capturing 15 of the most prevalent symptoms of long COVID and has been recommended for routine use by NHS England for the assessment, management and triage of patients. This UK SME has collaborated with this university to develop a faster, simpler, secure digital version of the paper tool for remote use at home with added questions to capture these established known symptoms and new symptoms emerging in clinics and in the literature. The patient web or mobile app and clinical web portal has been adapted from an established CE-marked medical device digital platform which enabled the SME to bring the new system to market in the UK and international healthcare sector rapidly and to support clinics with their unprecedented workload. As a result of thorough clinical use into the usability and feasibility of the original CE-marked system, this simpler system is considered easy to use, discrete and enables powerful reporting tools for the management of large patient cohorts in clinics and the monitoring of their rehabilitation and recovery trajectories. This innovative way of setting up patients to record their assessment, diagnosing and triage of patients with long COVID symptoms has been designed with clinicians to be integrated into GP practices, specialist COVID service providers, community health and acute trusts to support organisations better deploy, evidence and account for the complex mix of resources utilised for long COVID patients. The system has been live in several clinics across the UK since June 2021, with early results demonstrating 90% reduction in clinician time and thus, costs, required to conduct a telephone assessment previously. The system is also the focus of a £3.4 million project grant recently awarded to the UK University and the SME, which is funded by the National Institute for Health Research and will see the system be adopted across all 4 UK nations almost overnight. The SME is looking for healthcare organisations or companies globally with connections to local authorities who can provide assistance and local know-how to the company to enable them to enter the market or who have the necessary governance arrangements in place to distribute the system themselves. They are looking to do this via a commercial agency agreement and or a distribution services agreement.