PATH

The Situation

PATH catalyzes the development of high-impact diagnostic solutions that improve healthcare quality for people throughout the world. One solution PATH is advancing is a biomarker-based rapid diagnostic test to screen pregnant women at-risk for preeclampsia (PE), which accounts for 16 percent of maternal deaths in low- and middle-income countries. Early and accurate detection of PE is critical for linking at-risk women to proper care to avoid severe clinical outcomes, and testing based on human biomarkers has shown great potential in previous studies. In August 2017, PATH secured additional funding to complete the remaining research and development and work toward transferring the test to a commercial manufacturing partner. PATH was excited at the prospect of bringing a one of-a-kind, one-step, highly accurate biomarker-based PE diagnostic to market.

The Roadblock

In mid-2018, PATH experienced a major delay in the formal grant agreement process due to changing priorities of their donor. That, plus funding restrictions, limited the ability of PATH as a nonprofit to recover its cost to execute on product development of the biomarker-based PE test. This led to a shortfall in the funds required to complete the performance evaluations and refinement of the test before commercialization.

Open Road's Response

ORA realized that a relatively small amount of funding, less than 15 percent of the total amount invested in PATH's research and development effort on the test to date, was all that was needed to complete remaining development work and catalyze its ability to become a commercial product that could save the lives of thousands of pregnant women. ORA provided that funding.

To learn more visit: path.org