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Blood tests in the future might be getting a whole lot faster.
What’s happening:
- Toronto based startup Vital Biosciences is building diagnostics technology that aims to radically change blood testing
- Their flagship product known as VitalOne is a small device that would enable doctors to be able to test and diagnose patients within twenty minutes of receiving their blood work
- Vital has raised $48M in venture funding from the likes of Labcorp, Northpond Ventures, Route 66 Ventures, Sam Altman, Marc Benioff and others
Why it matters:
- Currently it takes days to get results back from standard blood work for patients
- Many important medical decisions and interventions rely on data from blood work
- Blood work is one of the best ways to preventively detect major health complications such as diabetes or congestive heart failure
How it works:
- With less than a teaspoon of blood as a sample, VitalOne aims to rapidly quantify the most commonly requisitioned test results in twenty minutes
- This relies on technical breakthroughs in their device across biochemistry, robotics and computer vision
The fine print:
- Silicon Valley has had an obsession with funding blood diagnostic startups in the past, including the rise and fall of Theranos
- Vital Biosciences is still in late stage testing and their device is not yet for sale
- Point of care testing for blood work is likely to require collaboration with the FDA to roll out hardware on a large scale
