ICOVELL was born from the RedPath research project, funded by the Aix Marseille University Excellence Initiative (AMIDEX). The company benefited from mentoring from the company Valoritech, then from the CNRS RISE program and Deeptech Founders (DF) training to formulate and structure its project. This support continued until December 2023 within the IMPULSE incubator in Marseille.
The loss of deformability of red blood cells is ath characteristic of sickle cell anemia. First genetic disease in frequency, it affects more than 8 million people worldwide.
Sickle cell disease causes unpredictable, extremely painful vaso-occlusive crises, requiring hospitalization of the patient and leading to numerous complications: bone infarction, renal or hepatic failure, etc. Vaso-occlusive crises can be lethal; those affecting the lung are the leading causes of death in sickle cell patients. The long-term complications of the disease significantly reduce the quality and expectancy of life, which is around 40 years worldwide. Currently, there is a lack of reliable markers to monitor the health status of patients, evaluate the effects of treatments, and prevent the occurrence of seizures.
ICOVELL has developed a patented technology, the Dynared platform, which provides a mechanical marker of red blood cell deformability.
This marker represents the level of deformable red blood cells in a blood sample. Red blood cells are classified as deformable or not depending on the specific movement they can adopt in a flow. This classification is carried out from video recordings using image analysis software based on machine learning. It is the development of this marker which constitutes the innovative character of the project.
Current treatments, which aim to prevent the onset of vaso-occlusive crises, are neither universally effective nor universally accessible and can cause side effects. The ICOVELL marker is stable over time in the basal state and varies during vaso-occlusive crises, thus allowing clinical monitoring. It can provide a medical service, by constituting the first tool capable of predicting the occurrence of a crisis.
Ultimately, ICOVELL’s ambition is to offer a system point of care, accessible to all, allowing patients to test themselves regularly at home, to detect the arrival of the vaso-occlusive crisis and put in place measures to stop the crisis. This solution point of care prevention will reduce the burden of disease by providing patients with better care, as well as reducing the number of hospitalizations. The latter represent the majority of the patient care pathway.
The company has 5 founders.
