MetHealth, an early-stage start-up focused on transforming obesity care, has won the 2022 University College Dublin (UCD) 'start-up of the year' award.
MetHealth also won a prize fund of €30,000 after being declared the overall winner of the 2022 UCD Venture Launch Accelerator programme.
The annual programme, which is run by NovaUCD, aims to support the creation and launch of sustainable and profitable new start-ups emerging from the University.
MetHealth is developing a platform and associated digital health solution that can identify patients with complications of obesity, including liver disease.
It said the platform supports clinical decision making and enhanced delivery of personalised care for individual patients.
"Early identification of those patients with liver inflammation is key but this currently involves painful invasive tests," said Dr Fiona McGillicuddy, a member of the MetHealth team.
"We are developing a novel biomarker-based platform technology which can, using a blood sample, stratify patients with obesity who are at high risk of complications of obesity including liver disease.
"This non-invasive test eliminates pain for the patient, is significantly more cost effective than an invasive test, can lead to early interventions for high-risk patients and can aid clinical trial recruitment for new drugs targeting the liver," she explained.
