Tummy
Helping IBD patients track and manage inflammation
Introduction
Over 2M Americans have been diagnosed with IBD with an additional 100K new diagnoses each year. The IBD patient journey is filled with ups and downs caused by medical complications, information overload, and laborious disease management. Inflammation tracking is a key tool in effectively managing disease outcomes and predicting future complications.
Problem
Inflammation tracking is currently done using stool tests which require patients to pick up testing kits at a lab, complete a sample at home, store the sample at home in their fridge, and then bring the sample back into the lab to complete testing. Besides the excessive time required of multiple lab visits, many patients report discomfort with handling stool samples for extended periods of time, leading to low test adherence rates as patients choose to skip the test. This leads to worse long-term health outcomes as clinicians are not able to track up-to-date inflammation levels in their patients, leading to more frequent flares and hospitalizations.
Opportunity
Tummy is an at-home inflammation testing service that allows for more convenient and timely testing of IBD patient inflammation levels. By removing key barriers such as travelling to a lab and having to store stool samples at home, Tummy makes it more likely a patient will adhere to their inflammation testing protocol. By pairing this with a digital solution, Tummy can allow patients to track their inflammation on a more timely basis, allowing for more proactive disease treatment.