HEALTH TECH: Smartphone urine testing
October 03, 2019 • 1 min read
-- The headline raises alarming questions, but the reality isn’t as yukky as you’re thinking.
Healthy.io, an Israel-based health-tech start-up, is looking to disrupt the business of urine testing, with a mobile phone app that allows people to conduct tests of their own.
Sure, patients still must pee in a cup (their own, at least), but instead of travelling to a medical lab they can do the job at home, where they can use the Healthy.io phone app to scan the testing strip after they’ve dipped it in their doings. Results are automatically sent to a doctor.
How convenient. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) thinks so, too, clearing the company to use its smartphone-based test to aid the diagnosis of chronic kidney disease (CKD), which affects over 35 million Americans.
Healthy.io is looking to raise $60 million Series C funding to do the job.
The company is also working with Johns Hopkins University to make it possible for pharmacies and health clinics to perform the test using smartphones, offering an alternative to investing in tabletop laboratory devices.