£3.2m Backs the West Midlands’ Test for Diagnostic Demand

IMS Solutions launched this week with more than £3m in backing to develop diagnostic tests for conditions involving disrupted steroid hormones. For the West Midlands, the significance is not simply another university spin-out or another early-stage funding round.

The business is a joint University of Birmingham and Imperial College London venture; its £1.1m seed round is led by Midlands Mindforge, while a further £2.1m NIHR grant has been awarded to Imperial. Its registered office is in Solihull, although it is hosted at Imperial’s MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences in London. That makes it a useful test of what regional commercialisation really means: not merely producing research, but turning credible evidence into a product that laboratories, clinicians and patients can use.

IMS is developing a urine test for adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC), a rare adrenal cancer, with a stated ambition to launch in the UK by 2029. It is also developing a stratification test for polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS), the term the company uses for the condition previously known as PCOS.

The two products serve very different markets, but they share the same commercial challenge. A sophisticated biological signal has to become a clear decision at the point where care is delivered.

A clinical foundation, not a finished market

There is a substantive evidence base behind the ACC proposition. The EURINE-ACT study examined 2,017 patients with adrenal masses across 14 specialist centres in 11 countries. It found that combining tumour size, imaging characteristics and urine steroid metabolomics improved identification of ACC while retaining a very high negative predictive value.

That matters because the commercial case is not founded on a vague promise that artificial intelligence can find hidden patterns. It rests on a specific diagnostic problem: adrenal masses are often found incidentally, while distinguishing the small number that are malignant from benign tumours can be difficult. A better route to risk classification could help clinicians move suitable patients towards specialist surgery sooner and avoid unnecessary intervention for others.

But strong validation is only the beginning of a diagnostic business. The value of a test depends on whether it changes a decision, for whom, and early enough to alter the patient journey. A result that arrives after imaging, multidisciplinary discussion or referral has already settled the question has limited commercial utility, however impressive its analytical performance.

IMS says its approach can be carried out in existing NHS laboratories without new machines or additional equipment. If that holds in routine use, it is potentially important. Many diagnostics fail to spread because their clinical promise comes with a new operational burden: specialist kit, scarce expertise, unfamiliar sample handling or a laboratory workflow that does not fit existing capacity.

The buyer is not the only customer

The next phase therefore needs to be designed around more than accuracy. For ACC, the patient, endocrinologist, radiologist, surgeon, pathology laboratory and local healthcare provider each experience the diagnostic pathway differently.

A laboratory needs a robust and repeatable assay. A clinician needs a result that can be interpreted alongside scans and other tests. A patient needs clarity about what an indeterminate finding means and what happens next. Those requirements are connected, but not interchangeable.

This is where health-tech commercialisation often becomes too inward-looking. A company may demonstrate that a test works, yet still underestimate the practical questions that determine adoption: Who orders it? At what point? Which patients qualify? Does it reduce repeat appointments or simply add another stage? How is an uncertain result explained? And does the test prevent enough avoidable procedures, delay or anxiety to justify its place in a constrained service?

The company’s proposed PMOS test makes this even more apparent. The opportunity is larger, but so is the risk of ambiguity. A stratification tool could support more tailored management if it identifies clinically meaningful groups of patients. It will need to show that those groups lead to different treatment, support or monitoring decisions—not just more detailed categorisation.

For a condition associated with varied symptoms and long diagnostic journeys, the experience of receiving and acting on a test result will matter as much as the underlying algorithm. The product proposition cannot stop at “more data”. It needs to offer a more intelligible route through care.

What the West Midlands should seek to capture

Midlands Mindforge’s lead role gives the region a direct interest in that commercial work. Yet the funding structure is also a reminder that regional value creation rarely stays neatly within regional boundaries. The science involves Birmingham and London; the company is hosted in London; its eventual customers will be national and potentially international.

That is not a weakness in itself. Life-sciences businesses need access to specialist clinical networks, investors, analytical capability and routes to market wherever they are strongest. The more useful regional question is whether the West Midlands retains meaningful roles as the business grows: clinical research partnerships, laboratory expertise, skilled employment, follow-on investment and patient-facing service design.

The £3.2m figure should also be read carefully. The seed round and the NIHR grant are both important, but they fund different parts of the journey. Neither removes the need to establish product-market fit, generate economic evidence and navigate the realities of clinical adoption.

IMS Solutions has a credible scientific starting point and a diagnosis-focused proposition with clear patient relevance. Its next achievement will not be another laboratory milestone alone. It will be proving that steroid data can make the diagnostic journey shorter, more certain and more usable in everyday care.

For Birmingham and the wider West Midlands, that is the more demanding measure of commercialisation—and the one worth following.