Mind.Px is a groundbreaking tool to prospectively predict patient response to expensive psoriasis biologics, improving patient outcomes and potentially avoiding billions of dollars of annual healthcare spend.

Psoriasis: A Chronic Disease

Psoriasis is a chronic autoimmune skin disorder that affects over 7.5 million patients in the United States and about 125 million people worldwide. It causes red, itchy scaly patches, most commonly on the knees, elbows, trunk and scalp. These lesions affect quality of life for many patients, and tends to go through cycles, flaring for a few weeks or months, then subsiding or going into remission. Treatments are available to help manage symptoms but there is no cure.

Psoriasis Symptoms

Psoriasis signs and symptoms can vary from person to person. Common signs and symptoms include:

  • Red patches of skin covered with thick, silvery scales
  • Small scaling spots (commonly seen in children)
  • Dry, cracked skin that may bleed or itch
  • Itching, burning or soreness
  • Thickened, pitted or ridged nails
  • Swollen and stiff joints

Psoriasis patches can range from a few spots of dandruff-like scaling to major eruptions that cover large areas. The most commonly affected areas are the lower back, elbows, knees, legs, soles of the feet, scalp, face and palms.

Plaque psoriasis is the most common form and causes dry, raised, red skin patches (lesions) covered with silvery scales. The plaques might be itchy or tender, and there may be few or many. They usually appear on elbows, knees, lower back and scalp.

Psoriasis Treatments

Psoriasis treatments aim to stop skin cells from growing too quickly and to remove scales. Options include creams and ointments (topical therapy), light therapy (phototherapy), and oral or injected medications.

Treatment choices differ based on disease severity. Moderate to severe psoriasis is often treated with systemic or expensive biologic drugs. These biologic drugs belong to different drug classes that include TNF inhibitors, Interleukin 12/23, Interleukin 17 and Interleukin 23. Responses vary by patient and many patients do not respond to the initial therapy. These non-responsive patients typically switch biologic drugs to move on to another drug class to seek symptom relief (“biologic switching”).

Biologic drugs, while very effective, are very costly for patients and medical insurance companies. Billions of dollars are spent each year for the biologic treatment of psoriasis. Most drugs require an initial “loading dose” to begin therapy. These loading doses result in high up-front costs as therapy starts.

Physicians and patients attempt to choose the proper therapy and require approval from insurance companies to tailor each patient’s treatment. However, many patients do not initially respond to the first biologic started (primary failure) and initial responders may develop decreasing efficacy over time (secondary failure). This results in discontinuing treatment and forces biologic switching. In addition, side effects or inconvenience also cause drug discontinuations.

Better Outcomes, Lower Costs:

The Mind.Px Solution

Before Mindera Health’s Mind.Px, providers had no science-based, data-driven methodology to select the best drug class for their patients. In fact, the recently published national guidelines of the American Academy of Dermatology – National Psoriasis Foundation explicitly call for the need to identify biomarkers that can improve drug choice.

The Mindera Health platform provides the missing predictive link between a patient’s genetic markers and responsiveness to different drug classes. By capturing RNA from a patient’s psoriasis lesion, Next Generation Sequencing is used to evaluate over 7,000 biomarkers per test sample. Analyses of these biomarkers can be used by patients, providers and payers to predict biologic drug response to better select the ideal therapy. The use of Mind.Px results in better outcomes and significantly reduced specialty drug costs to the health care system.

“There is also an important need to identify biomarkers that can potentially predict the appropriate biologic agent for individual patients.”

Mindera Health Patch Testimonials

“At the most, it felt like Velcro on my skin. If I ever needed to use it, I would ask for it.”

“The device seemed simple, easy to use, as well as painless.”

“The biopsy was slightly uncomfortable. This [the Mindera Health device] was not.”

“Quick and easy. I barely felt it.”

“I didn’t feel a thing.”

“Very fast and painless”

“It was great. No problems.”

“No discomfort at all. Very pleasant experience.”

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