IBDrelief partners with tech company Motilent to improve outcomes from MRI for Crohn’s disease patients

IBDrelief is partnering with Motilent, a company that specialises in the assessment of digestive diseases using medical image analysis, for a project which has been funded by the government through an Innovate UK grant.

The project will see Motilent work to develop a tool that radiologists doing MRI scans can use to quickly generate a validated score to measure Crohn’s disease activity in a patient. Doctors treating these patients will then be able to use this score to help use the right treatments at the right time.

Motilent, has been successfully awarded a grant as part of Innovate UK’s recent call entitled ‘Enabling integrated diagnostics for early detection. For the project they will be working with

Great Ormond Street Hospital, University College London (UCL) and University of Nottingham (UoN). To ensure the project helps provide better outcomes and experiences for patients IBDrelief will be working alongside these partners to provide patient input, advice and experience.

Dr Alex Menys, CEO of Motilent said: "This project has been a long time in the works and brings together a fantastic and dedicated team with the ability to deliver this exciting programme of work. We're going to be developing a tool for the radiologist to generate an objective score for Crohn's disease activity based on well validated parameters that are currently too time consuming to perform clinically."

Prof Stuart Taylor, Professor of Medical Imaging and Consultant Radiologist, UCL said: "I've conducted several large multi-centre trials over the last decade and this new project focuses on tying existing findings and data together into a set of pragmatic adjustments to how we assess Crohn's disease with MRI focusing on reducing time, increasingly accuracy and improving the patient experience."

Dr. Gordon Moran, Consultant Gastroenterologist, UoN: "This project is going to help me get a quantitative score for Crohn’s disease activity which especially in the small bowel is hugely important for assessing treatment response with powerful expensive medications. 

Seb Tucknott, CEO of IBDrelief, said: “This project is really exciting and could have some big benefits for patients with Crohn’s disease in the small bowel, helping them to receive more targeted treatments in a more timely fashion. At IBDrelief we are passionate about ensuring that patients are involved in every stage of research and development to achieve the best outcomes possible, so we are delighted to be working with Motilent and partners to make sure this project helps make a big difference to patients as well as clinical teams.”

Find out more about the project.