Impli Secures £1.4M NIHR Grant to Advance Continuous Hormone-Monitoring Patch for IVF Clinical Validation
Key Insights
Impli (search), an Imperial College London spin-out based at Biopôle in Lausanne, has been awarded a £1.4 million grant from the UK's NIHR Invention for Innovation program.
The funding will advance BEAM, a minimally invasive microneedle patch that continuously monitors estradiol, luteinizing hormone, and progesterone in interstitial fluid, through first-in-human clinical validation for IVF.
A 30-month consortium including Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, King's College London, Fertility Europe, and TTP will conduct a 25-participant pilot study and prepare for NHS adoption.
Impli (search), a deeptech company developing continuous molecular monitoring for hormonal health, has been awarded a £1.4 million grant from the United Kingdom's National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) (search) Invention for Innovation program. The funding will propel BEAM (Bio-Endocrine Analysis Monitor) (search), the company's minimally invasive microneedle patch, through clinical validation for use in in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Founded as an Imperial College London spin-out, Impli (search) has maintained a presence at the Biopôle life sciences campus in Lausanne since 2021. The company was also recently selected alongside MoleSense (search) by Germany's Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation (SPRIN-D (search)) for its Challenge on continuous hormone monitoring, underscoring growing recognition of the unmet need in this space.
The BEAM Patch: Continuous, Real-Time Hormone Monitoring
Worn on the upper arm, the BEAM patch employs aptamer-based electrochemical biosensors to continuously measure estradiol, luteinizing hormone (LH), and progesterone in interstitial fluid. Data are transmitted to a smartphone, where AI algorithms convert the signals into real-time hormone trends, offering clinicians a dynamic view of a patient's hormonal status rather than the isolated, single-timepoint readings that characterize current standard practice.
The device addresses a significant gap in reproductive medicine. Infertility (search) affects one in six people worldwide, and IVF cycles currently require up to ten clinic visits for blood draws, with clinicians often making treatment decisions based on hormone values that are one to two days old. By reducing those visits to as few as two, the BEAM patch aims to enable real-time, personalized treatment adjustments.
Consortium and Clinical Development Plan
The NIHR grant supports a 30-month consortium program that brings together Impli (search), Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, King's College London, the patient network Fertility Europe, and medical device manufacturer TTP. The program will take BEAM from prototype to first-in-human validation, including a 25-participant pilot study, alongside the regulatory and health-economic groundwork required for adoption by the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS).
Broader Context: The SPRIND Hormone Challenge
In parallel, Impli (search) and fellow Biopôle-based start-up MoleSense (search) have both been selected by Germany's SPRIN-D (search) for its Challenge on continuous hormone monitoring, with support including funding of up to €1.5 million in Stage 1. The Challenge asks teams to capture at least four hormones—among them estrogen, progesterone, LH, FSH, cortisol, testosterone, or thyroid hormones—over at least seven consecutive days, directly in a biological matrix such as interstitial fluid, sweat, or saliva.
A shared reference data pool is also being created as part of the Challenge, intended as the first standardized collection of continuous hormone data across populations, life phases, and health conditions. This initiative reflects a growing acknowledgment that hormonal systems—particularly in women, whose hormonal variability has long been underrepresented in research—require more sophisticated monitoring approaches. Conditions such as endometriosis (search), polycystic ovary syndrome (search), and hormone-dependent cardiovascular diseases are frequently detected late or remain poorly understood, in part due to the limitations of current single-timepoint measurement methods.
Impli (search)'s dual recognition through both the NIHR grant and the SPRIND Challenge positions the company at the forefront of a paradigm shift toward continuous, real-time hormone monitoring with the potential to transform both fertility treatment and broader hormonal health management.