When it’s time to visit the doctor for your annual exam, there’s one test that typically holds up the process. While most vital signs are easily obtained, the blood test can often take hours, if not days. Doctors rely on crucial information from blood tests to make 70% of their diagnoses. And while blood tests at large healthcare systems are sometimes analyzed on-site, more than 60% are performed outside of the hospital. In non-hospital settings, physicians must send samples to a central lab for analysis and wait for results to make a clinical decision.
Imagine this scenario instead: your nurse performs the typical tests at your annual appointment, measuring blood pressure, heart rate and temperature, and taking blood from your arm. Soon she returns with answers before your doctor counsels you. The healthcare provider can view the results immediately, eliminating a long wait time and tedious follow-up calls and appointments.
This is the new reality Chronus Health, a Fogarty Innovation graduate, is creating. The venture-backed medical technology company has developed the first-of-its-kind, real-time electrical sensing-based blood testing system for use in urgent care centers, skilled nursing facilities, infusion centers, retail clinics, and primary care and specialty clinics.
The genesis of Chronus Health
As often happens, the idea came to its inventor, Ashish Jagtiani, Ph.D., because of a need in his personal life. Ashish was working at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center, focusing on semiconductor devices and the development of highly specialized lab-on-chip devices, when his sister was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia. Frustrated by the long wait times for her blood test results, Ashish was inspired to develop a faster solution for blood panels. He teamed up with his long-time friend Anand Parikh, a bioengineering graduate with over 10 years of experience in medical devices. Together they launched Chronus Health.
The team quickly grew, each new employee offering a broad range of experiences and backgrounds that have helped the company move quickly and nimbly. Chronus Health joined Fogarty Innovation as a company-in-residence in 2019 and graduated in 2022.
Finding a better way
The market for blood testing is driven by the increasing burden of chronic and infectious diseases, increased focus on early detection, technological advancements and the rise of point-of-care testing. In the U.S. alone, the market was valued at approximately $85 billion in 2022.
While there are several on-site blood analyzers already on the market, most clinics are reluctant to buy them for several reasons. First, they are classified as moderate-complexity instruments, which means the clinic needs to hire a qualified lab technician to operate them. Second, because the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) regulates all laboratory testing through the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA), clinics have to obtain CLIA certification that involves a rigorous compliance, monitoring and documentation process. Finally, there is the expense of the analyzer itself, with a base unit starting at $15,000 and more sophisticated machines topping out at over $100,000.
Chronus Health’s portable device promises to sidestep most of these barriers. Operating with the simplicity of a glucose meter, it provides lab results in minutes, allowing for real-time diagnosis and dramatically improving patient outcomes.
The company accomplishes this by replacing complex optical measurements and movement of samples with microfluidics that use only electrical measurements. The entire analysis happens on a disposal test cartridge embedded with sensors, which means this technology makes the results equivalent to an expensive and bulky blood analyzer accessible.
The startup has focused its initial efforts on complete blood count (CBC) and comprehensive metabolic panel (CMP), which make up approximately half of the tests ordered by physicians. CBC can quickly evaluate a patient’s overall health, while CMP provides insight into kidney and liver conditions, blood sugar and electrolyte levels.
Launching breakthrough technology
In July, Chronus Health unveiled its electrical sensing-based blood testing technology at the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (ADLM) 2024 conference in Chicago. Healthcare providers and other stakeholders were treated to a live demo of Chronus’ innovative platform.
Chronus Health’s platform can uniquely support cell counting, chemistry assays (electrolytes, small molecules, and proteins), and immunoassays (proteins). This comprehensive solution, often regarded as the “holy grail” of diagnostics, has remained elusive until now, as past attempts to miniaturize existing technologies have lacked technical feasibility and cost effectiveness.
By leveraging a proprietary electrical sensing approach that integrates microfluidic sensors, machine learning, and aptamers, Chronus is poised to be the first company to successfully deliver a platform capable of testing multiple blood panels outside the central lab setting.
At Fogarty Innovation, we are proud to support Chronus Health as they bring this important technology to the world. To learn more, visit their website at www.chronushealth.com.