How to successfully commercialise microbiome-based diagnostics

In this Med-tech Innovation News article, Andrew Thomson, Brian Carpenter and Robert Broadnax explore key drivers of adoption of microbiome-based diagnostics, highlight barriers to their use and offer recommendations to overcome specific challenges. Microbiome-based diagnostics have generated significant interest in recent years partly due to widespread advances in the development of underlying microbiome mapping technologies. These technologies can link the composition of a person’s microbiome – the diverse community of all microorganisms, helpful and harmful, in the human body – to the emergence and progression of specific diseases. Arming physicians and patients with tools to accurately characterise imbalances in bacteria living in the human microbiome (dysbiosis) is essential to identifying and managing diseases as early as possible.