Background
Entia is a medical technology business transforming the way cancer care is delivered with innovative at-home monitoring and analytic solutions that allow patients to easily and effectively perform blood tests from their homes. Entia is on a mission to give patients experiencing cancer treatment as much time as possible and to make their lives less “medicalised”.
Through innovation, testing and refinement, Entia has developed products that are robust and user-friendly and can gather high-quality data that allows doctors and other medical professionals to remotely monitor their patients. Entia’s monitoring and analytical solutions offer a more preventative and personalised approach to cancer care, whilst also freeing up healthcare providers’ resources. This success has recently culminated in a commercial partnership with Pfizer UK, which will allow Entia to launch Entia Liberty, a virtual oncology solution that allows patients to perform their own blood tests at home so remote healthcare teams can monitor and help manage the haematological toxicity of cancer treatment.
Challenge
As a start-up, Entia (then known as Eva Diagnostics) won the OneStart Competition in 2014, run by Oxbridge Biotech and SR One venture capital, based on an innovative method of analysing blood to diagnose and manage anaemia. Forresters sponsored the competition, and as a prize prepared a patent application to cover the design of a cuvette (a small container for holding samples) which could be used to gather blood for analysis. Entia and Forresters have had a successful relationship ever since.
Action taken
Forresters has filed patent and design applications to cover many aspects of Entia’s technology. Our attorneys have visited Entia regularly to discuss developments, and to advise on which aspects of Entia’s products and techniques could be protected. Entia’s inventions often straddle the boundary between the mechanical and chemical/life sciences fields, and this has needed input from a range of attorneys at Forresters, with different technical backgrounds.
The Forresters team has been led by Alex Beattie, handling subject-matter based in physics/engineering, and Rosalie Shepherd, handling subject-matter based in chemistry.
Result
Many of the patent applications have now matured into granted patents covering different territories around the world. This has helped Entia to secure investment, which is crucial for technology companies. Entia’s portfolio of patents and designs will also lead to greater security against copying by competitors, which becomes more likely as its products are widely launched.
