Cognetivity Neurosciences Ltd (CNSX:CGN) COO on Non-Clinical Applications of Dementia Testing Technology

Cognetivity Neurosciences Ltd (CNSX:CGN) (OTCMKTS:CGNSF) (FRA:1UB) creates cognitive testing technology for early and quick dementia detection. COO Tom Sawyer provides an update on the company’s 2019 plans. Sawyer sees a bifurcation in the market for Cognetivity’s technology between clinical and non-clinical use. In terms of non-clinical uses, Cognetivity’s technology can be used in health care monitoring apps by individuals who want greater control of their health. Sawyer notes this market split is essential for Cognetivity, as the non-clinical applications of the company’s technology represent opportunities to generate profit before the clinical uses are officially approved.

Transcript:

Fraser Toms:  Hey, everybody, I’m joined by COO of Cognetivity Limited, Tom Sawyer. Tom, how’s it going?

Tom Sawyer:   Very well, thanks. Thanks for having me on.

Fraser Toms:  No problem. So I see you guys were down at the Cantech conference there. How’s that been going?

Tom Sawyer:   It’s been good. Busy day – my colleague’s giving me a talk right now, and a lot of good meetings, so yeah, it’s been positive, thank you.

Fraser Toms:  Awesome. So for those who don’t know, your company is involved with doing cognitive tests to some degree which would potentially allow patients or people to understand if they’re at risk for dementia or other things? Can you elaborate on that for the viewers?

Tom Sawyer:   Absolutely. You know, this, the idea of being able to accurately and early diagnose dementia is quite an important thing. So you know, dementia is the biggest single health care challenge of the 21^st century, and currently the system is terrible at diagnosing people. And one of the main ways that you can diagnose people is to show cognitive impairment, right? So they’re not performing as well as they should be for their age or, you know, their group, and be able to spot that early.

Fraser Toms:  Right. And so the main, I guess, product or IP that the company has right now is that we’ve seen it before on the show, that the app that was in an iPad, and you’re able to, pictures flash up and you’re supposed to identify a category, and if your score is off it might suggest that it’s not clicking you might be a bit slower than you should be.

Tom Sawyer:   Yes, I think that’s a fair description. So really what we have is something that we like to say is equivalent to, say, a blood pressure test. So if you got to see your doctor and you have a blood pressure test, the test is cheap, easy to administer, but it’s meaningful: it says something about your cardiovascular health. But if you have high blood pressure, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to drop dead from a heart attack tomorrow; it says we need to investigate and see why that is.

Similarly for cognition, if we’re not where we think you should be, well, it can cure age for example, then we’re able to examine that and say okay, why is this? Can we explain it? Are you under medication? Are you alcohol impaired, and so on. If you can’t explain it, you would refer to a specialist.

Fraser Toms:  And so, what’s the – obviously this is something that you want to sell to health care systems. So what’s the strategy, what’s the biggest market that you want to go first? Is it US, or where would you be looking?

Tom Sawyer:   Sure, yeah, I mean obviously the US health care market is the biggest market in the world, and we’re keen to get in there, absolutely, without a doubt. I mean, I think we can split the way that we approach the market into two ways: there’s the clinical use, so this is used by doctors, which requires regulatory approval, but also recently, at the end of last year, we signed a commercial agreement for non-clinical use, to be use as a suite of health care monitoring apps, which are then to be used by people who are taking control of their own health. And by using that, they will be able to access cheaper insurance policies and so on, and we’re able to supply a cognitive model, i.e. something that allows us to test how well people are performing.

Fraser Toms:  Yeah, and there’s a look at what we’re dealing with there. Okay, so, looking at your recent press releases, there’s clinical trials that you guys have been carrying out. Why don’t I just let you cover the key items from sort of the end of last year and moving into this year? What are the milestones that Cognetivity Neurosciences has sort of crossed?

Tom Sawyer:   Yeah, so I think at the end of the last year the exciting thing has really been this partnership agreement we signed with a company called dacadoo AG who supply this suite of health care monitoring software to insurance company clients. This is a very interesting thing for us, because this allows us to really get into revenue ahead of regulatory approval, because obviously anything you approve for clinical use has to go through the FDA, Health Canada and so on, which I a very long and time-consuming process.

So the ability to show that we can generate revenue ahead of that approval process is very important for us, and it’s a very exciting partnership.

Fraser Toms:  Has that process started? I mean, how – I understand it’s complicated, and, you know, it will take a long time, but have you guys reached out to Health Canada or how do you even start that?

Tom Sawyer:   Yes, so the way you start that is, you design a trial and you effectively have that approved by various regulatory authorities. So for example, with regard to the FDA in the US, we would pre-submit our trial design to them, they would them comment, we’d take them on board, and then we would go ahead with a trial.

So the trial we’re doing we’re actually conducting in the UK at the moment, and that’s ongoing. And we expect to that to really take to the end of the year to complete before we’re able to do the submission; the same goes for Health Canada, the same for the European regulatory approval. So they all happen, you know, fairly concurrently.

Fraser Toms:  Yeah, you know, and you can take that trial and then build it out to different nations as you see fit, right, which is, I guess, the potential is sort of limited to the number of countries and health care systems, to some respect.

Tom Sawyer:   Exactly that. And obviously, you know, we’ll address markets in their sort of relative importance: so, North America, obviously important; Europe, very important as well.

Fraser Toms:  Okay, great. Well, Tom, thanks so much for coming in and enjoy the rest of the conference. And we’d love to have you back, especially as the trials are winding down and kind of see where the company’s at.

Tom Sawyer:   Thank you very much.

Fraser Toms:  Okay.

Original article: Cognetivity Neurosciences Ltd (CNSX:CGN) COO on Non-Clinical Applications of Dementia Testing Technology

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