Industry Speaks
Because liver health matters
On an overview of Echosens contribution in liver health industry globally
Today, Echosens is the global market leader for non-invasive liver diagnostic solutions. We are a company fully committed to the evolution of clinical research, with over 4’800+ peer-reviewed publications, 180 international guidelines, and 125 patents granted. Echosens also has a strong presence in clinical practice, with over 6 million examinations per year and almost 9’000 devices installed worldwide. Our commercial footprint, with 8 subsidiaries worldwide, 92 distributors and a presence in 127 countries is making FibroScan® available and accessible to thousands of clinicians and to millions of patients.
On how Echosens plans to expand its market reach in India
We have developed a strong footprint in India with a local team complemented by local partners and an extensive network of distributors covering the entire subcontinent. Of course, we have a commercial presence but also robust logistics, technical service, and clinical support capabilities.
In addition, we are collaborating directly with several local pharma companies to enable diagnostic and monitoring of patients for liver disease treatment. FibroScan® is being used in India every day to identify patients eligible for treatment with saroglitazar (Zydus) which is the first treatment against MASH ever approved.
On initiatives taken to make the technology accessible to a broader segment of the population
Of course, investing into FibroScan® equipment can be a financial limitation in some market segments. Therefore Echosens is offering alternative business models where relevant such as short and long-term rentals and FibroScan® as a service. A great example of our flexibility as we want to meet the local expectations is to contract a third-party company to travel with a FibroScan® from hospital to hospital offering exams to pre-screened patients. This flexibility allows FibroScan® access to a larger number of patients so that they can be diagnosed and treated as needed. As physicians and patients, we must shift our focus from late-stage treatment to early detection and prevention.
On how you see the industry evolving in the next 5-10 years, and what the company is doing to stay ahead of these trends
With the advent of MASH therapies to halt or reverse progression of the disease, the demand for diagnostic tests will go up drastically across segments and along the patient pathway from assessment to monitoring.
Echosens is building a comprehensive Liver Health Management ecosystem with a unique combination of devices, biomarkers, and data solutions.
Our complete portfolio allows the FibroScan® to be installed in different settings, in the past mainly hospitals have been equipped to propose a liver examination with FibroScan® to patients. With the prevailing scenario of MAFLD, FibroScan® will become more and more a total solution for liver specialists and non-specialists out of the hospital.
The combination of the results of the examination with FibroScan® with blood biomarkers to obtain Scores such as Fast, Agile 3+ and Agile 4, enhances the ability of the clinician to assess the risk for the patients and help to stratify them. Finally, the digital solutions based on cloud technologies that we started introducing in USA and Europe create an ecosystem of services to streamline the clinician workflow, help in patient management, and generate data insights to shape even more the future of liver health. Such data can also be very useful to pharma companies as they constantly work to improve the effectiveness of drugs. Finally payers are equally interested as they want to monitor the impact of treatment over time. At Echosens, our mission is to empower medical professionals to manage liver health for simpler, faster and better patient care because liver health matters.
