The Science Behind Nutromics’ Lab-on-a-Patch: A Leap Toward Continuous, Personalized Care

In a world-first milestone for wearable diagnostics, Australian medtech innovator Nutromics has demonstrated real-time, in vivo, multiplexed measurement of vancomycin and tobramycin—two critical antibiotics used in intensive care. This achievement marks a major leap in Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM), offering clinicians continuous, data-driven insights that could transform how life-threatening infections and drug dosing are managed. At the heart of this innovation is Nutromics’ Lab-on-a-Patch, a pioneering biosensing platform capable of simultaneously tracking multiple molecular targets through a single wearable device. In this exclusive interaction with Medtech Spectrum, Hitesh Mehta (Co-founder and COO), Dr Julian Gerson (Lead Scientist), and Dr Marsilea Harrison (Senior Scientist) share how their team overcame the complex scientific and translational challenges of real-time biosensing, what this means for antibiotic stewardship, and the roadmap toward broader clinical applications in sepsis, cardiology, and home-based care.

Nutromics has demonstrated the world’s first real-time, multiplexed measurement of vancomycin and tobramycin in vivo. Could you explain the significance of this breakthrough for clinicians and patients? 

From: Hitesh Mehta Co-founder and COO

A major goal in the world of biosensing has always been to be able to measure multiple molecules in real-time on the same device. We are the first to be able to demonstrate this in vivo (in animal models). The significance of this in the hospital setting is that instead of wearing multiple patches or doing multiple blood tests, a single device will give clinicians and patients insight into critical molecules. This could help track things like an infection and treatment at the same time, or multiple health markers post-discharge. 

Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM) is traditionally performed via point-in-time blood tests. How does Nutromics’ Lab-on-a-Patch® transform this process, and what advantages does continuous monitoring bring in critical care settings? 

From: Hitesh Mehta Co-founder and COO

Clinicians today are hampered by insufficient and delayed lab diagnostics. The standard of care is not equipped to provide trend information, which is critical in the ICU for fast-moving disease states and dynamic patient conditions. The result is poor patient outcomes and billions in additional healthcare costs running a highly inefficient system. Our diagnostic platform is like a lab-on-a-patch. It can track multiple crucial targets continuously and in real-time, giving clinicians critical, personalized insights. For vancomycin dosing, by providing real-time insight into the drug concentration levels we can unlock personalised dosing. Our goal is to reduce adverse outcomes (such as AKI from overdosing) while simplifying the clinical workflow. 

Multiplexing represents a major leap forward. What challenges did your team overcome to achieve accurate, interference-free detection of multiple drugs on a single device? 

From Dr Julian Gerson (Lead Scientist) who led this study: 

A lot of work went into building our functional microneedle devices and designing the right aptamers to bind each of the drugs over relevant concentration ranges. Continuous monitoring of one analyte in-vivo is challenging, let alone multiple. Fortunately for us the underlying tech lends itself very well to multianalyte measurements. Aptamers are highly generalizable and can be designed to bind a huge range of targets with the necessary specificity to support on-body measurements. At Nutromics, we've built a modular platform, so no changes are needed to the device itself to measure different analytes, just the aptamer that is attached to the microneedles. 

Your COO highlighted the vision of expanding beyond antibiotics into areas such as cardiology, triage, and home care. Could you share more about the roadmap for adding new biomarkers to the platform? 

From: Hitesh Mehta Co-founder and COO

We are looking to launch into our first market, Vancomycin, in 2028. In parallel, we are developing markers for Sepsis and will be looking to launch those in 2030. 

How do you see Nutromics’ technology addressing the twin risks of overdosing and antimicrobial resistance, particularly in conditions like sepsis and MRSA? 

From: Hitesh Mehta Co-founder and COO

It is a well-established fact that vancomycin dosing has a narrow therapeutic range that has high inter-patient variability. We also know that when a patient has an infection such as sepsis or MRSA, their drug clearance rate changes and this again adds to inter patient variability. By giving insight into when vancomycin delivered to a patient is in the right range, and alerting clinicians when it goes over or under that range, we hope to address the risks of overdosing and antimicrobial resistance. We are currently in clinical studies in ICU patients. As our studies progress we hope to get more real-world data about outcomes possible. 

Many biosensor technologies face hurdles when moving from lab validation to real-world conditions. What key lessons has Nutromics learned from its first-in-human vancomycin studies that are shaping future clinical translation? 

From Dr Mars Harrison (Senior Scientist): 

The transition from the lab into real-world conditions is a challenge, evidenced by how few biosensor technologies are commercially available in comparison to the number of promising biosensors published in literature. Being able to do this at Nutromics has been an incredible experience and a world's first. Some key lessons for us have been:

Build trust in the technology: Testing and challenging the technology repeatedly in bench-top and pre-clinical conditions helped us anticipate challenges and build something durable. This deepened our trust in the platform and allowed us to move into clinics with more confidence. 

Feedback, feedback, feedback: We're building a device that is intended to be used by clinicians and nurses, and so their feedback on the design, user experience etc. has been invaluable. They serve as co-partners in this process, and their feedback helps us build a device that will fit seamlessly into busy hospitals.

Planning ahead with purpose: We have used learnings from each test and study to plan future tests and iterations. Going back and challenging our assumptions helps us go beyond collecting more data.