David Barthel, CEO of Health Logic Interactive Inc., joined me to discuss their lab-on-chip, point-of-care platform technology for CKD. He also explored the issues with the traditional hospital-centered model of care and shared his tips for new biotech startups and leaders.
Here is a sneak peek of our conversation:
Q: Tell us a little bit around the focus [the kidney]. You’re calling it a medical device, it specifically is being used as a diagnostic piece. You call it a lab-on-a-chip. Maybe you can describe to us what exactly it is that you’re doing with this product?
A: We’re doing a couple of things that are disruptive, that are innovative, that are unique, and that has never been done before. So, we are doing a point-of-care, lab-on-a-chip digital diagnostic. We will be the first people that actually will have that and more importantly, it will be a quantitative measurement which is not done today, but the lab-on-a-chip is interesting. Again, it’s proprietary and it’s out of the University of Manitoba. It was developed by a clinical team there and it’s basically a credit card that you put biomarkers on, you’re able to measure biomarkers on.
The lab-on-a-chip is where we’re moving the lab to the home. We’re trying to eliminate that screening gap. The lab-on-a-chip is a platform technology, which means that right now, our focus is on specifically three biomarkers for chronic kidney disease, but we have the ability to look at other disease states and measure other biomarkers. It’s getting the lab on demand, it’s getting the test on demand and it’s being able to provide a very quick, low cost, affordable, accessible test to a global population.
The lab-on-a-chip technology is very small, it’s disposable and the way that we have it designed, it will be placed into a handheld device that takes the measurement and then that data is collected and transported to a smartphone, via an app, so either the nephrologist initially or the patient has the data at their hands.
For more of our discussion, you can watch the whole Fireside Chat with David Barthel or listen to the podcast version, below.
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