Precise blood testing from a fingerprick? Tanay Tandon & Deepika Bodapati thinks it's possible
Bloomberg|
Updated: Aug 30, 2017, 12.29 PM IST
By Caroline Chen
A Stanford University dropout wants to change blood testing with a machine that promises precise results from a fingerprick.
This is not the story of turtleneck-wearing Elizabeth Holmes's Theranos Inc. -- which soared to fame and then just as spectacularly crashed to Earth two years ago. With this new startup, some investors believe, things will be different.
Tanay Tandon and co-founder Deepika Bodapati, who dropped out of the University of Southern California, have raised $3.7 million from investors led by venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital to kickstart their company, Athelas, named for the healing plant in "The Lord of the Rings." The founders, who are 20 and 22, respectively, say that their portable blood analyzer, a black cylinder that looks a lot like v.'s device, can run a complete blood-cell count from a fingerprick test done at home.
Tandon said he's learned from the collapse of Theranos, which attained a $9 billion valuation and fawning press coverage despite sharing little about how its technology actually worked. When Theranos's innovations proved illusory, its value cratered as investors fled.
"Theranos proved there was clear interest in the space -- it would have been a great company if it worked," he said. "Now, investors say they need proof before we can raise money."
Seeking approval
Athelas has published initial data comparing traditional laboratory results to its technology, which captures high-resolution images of a blood sample, then uses a computer to tag and count the cells. Its process relies on machine learning. Tandon amassed thousands of images of blood cells labeled by pathologists and fed them to computers to train them to distinguish between different types of cells, which he says will have greater precision than standard testing.
The company has submitted data to the US Food and Drug Administration and hopes to receive clearance this year verifying that its technology produces results equivalent to blood drawn from a vein and tested on industry-standard equipment.
For now, its device can be used by patients for medical decisions as long as a pathologist verifies any test results. Gaining clearance from the FDA would allow Athelas to sell its device over the counter, according to Tandon.Early believers include two major pharmaceutical companies that have signed deals to explore Athelas's device as a test to help find more patients for their white blood cell-boosting drugs, said Tandon, who declined to name the companies.
Alfred Lin, the Sequoia partner advising Athelas, envisions the product being used in emergency rooms, becoming as ubiquitous as a thermometer.
"Our thesis is it will get adopted because it will drive costs down and provide a better customer experience," said Lin. "Time will tell."
Wary doctors
Until insurers agree to cover the cost, patients will have to pay $20 a month for the home-testing service. Athelas plans to first focus on cancer patients, who need frequent blood draws to monitor white blood cell counts, which show the immune system’s strength. Tandon said he hopes oncologists will recommend the device to patients.
Doctors interviewed by Bloomberg News were iintrigued but had reservations. Cancer patients typically need to get their white blood cell counts measured before starting a round of chemotherapy. Being able to test before traveling for a treatment could prevent hassle.
"It's pretty demoralizing to get into the car, drive three hours to be told your blood count's too low, please come back next week," said Scott Kopetz, an associate professor of medical oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. "Reducing those cases could be a benefit."
White blood cell counts are critical when cancer patients develop a fever, because a low count means they're vulnerable to infection, according to Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. However, Brawley says he'd typically tell such patients to come into the hospital anyway, so Athelas's device wouldn't save them a trip.
Patients "could just collapse on you, so we have to figure out their white count before we let them leave," Brawley said.
Beyond the matter of convenience, if Athelas doesn't integrate seamlessly into existing electronic medical-record systems, most doctors would reject it because they don't want to deal with separate software, said Kopetz. Bypassing a clinic visit may also hurt a doctor's bottom line.
"My business manager would be upset because we can't charge the the patient for that visit," said Brawley.
Peter Eisenberg, an oncologist at Marin Cancer Care in California, said the current lack of insurance coverage was a dealbreaker for him. "I'm not going to tell patients to buy anything if their insurance doesn't cover it," he said. For a patient who lives in a remote area, "yeah, sure, put one in that patient's home," he said. "But there's no burning need at all."
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