Our Mission

Incentec will provide a diagnostic test for the damaging and potentially fatal disorder pre-eclampsia, so that both mother and baby remain safe throughout pregnancy. Our future goals are to invest in the development of other antenatal care solutions, so that uncertainty during pregnancy and delivery will be scientifically solved, improving antenatal care for the future.

Our primary objective is to produce the first diagnostic test for the prediction of pre-eclampsia.

Pre-eclampsia is a placental disorder that occurs during pregnancy and affects both the mother and unborn baby. Complicating between 5–10% of all pregnancies, pre-eclampsia is a rapidly progressive condition characterised by high blood pressure, swelling and protein in the urine. The condition usually manifests itself in the late 2^nd or 3^rd trimester of pregnancy. In 1–2% of pregnancies, severe symptoms of pre-eclampsia such as convulsions and / or coma may develop, accounting for 1 in 5 maternal deaths and 15% of premature births in the developed world. The physiological processes responsible for the onset of pre-eclampsia have yet to be fully understood; current methods of diagnosis are based on a process of elimination of other conditions to which symptoms indicative of pre-eclampsia could be attributed.

The lack of a clinically-useful screening test to predict pre-eclampsia leaves some affected mothers undiagnosed and sent home whilst unaffected mothers may be placed under observation, causing them unnecessary anxiety. This could result in ensuing litigation against the healthcare provider. Invaluable hospital beds and clinicians’ time are also needlessly occupied. The only definitive treatment for pre-eclampsia is premature delivery of the placenta and baby by caesarean section, a highly risky procedure.

Early diagnosis of pre-eclampsia buys valuable time in which the mothers’ symptoms can be reduced with anti-hypertensive drugs, delaying pre-term delivery to give their baby a better chance of survival. Our antibody-based diagnostic test will rapidly detect the presence / absence of marker-proteins, associated with the onset of pre-eclampsia.