Tel Aviv, Israel-based Healthy.io is a company that has created a category of smartphone urinalysis by offering the only FDA and CE cleared home urine test that is comparable to lab-based devices. Healthy.io’s technology is essentially shifting clinical grade urinalysis from labs to your home. This technology has become known as the “medical selfie.”
Recently, Healthy.io announced it has raised $18 million in Series B funding. With this funding round, it will help scale Healthy.io’s home testing service in the U.S and U.K. Aleph led this funding round. And Samsung NEXT and private investors made significant contributions to this round.
Healthy.io’s goal is to help spare the millions of people from the burden of kidney disease complications and to help cut costs for the overstrained medical system. Currently, one in three American adults is at risk of kidney disease. And 100,000 are developing kidney failure every year. This disease takes a toll on the quality of life for patients and it costs Medicare $114 billion every year.
Healthy.io pointed out that early detection makes an enormous difference in avoiding complications from kidney disease. So those who are at risk should have their urine tested for protein at least once per year. Unfortunately, the current inefficient testing process means that only 6% of people with hypertension and 39% of diabetes patients undergo proper testing for kidney disease.
Geisinger Health assessed Healthy.io’s in conjunction with the U.S. National Kidney Foundation. And it achieved a 71% adherence rate amongst patients with hypertension who have never been tested before. In the UK, the service was rolled out in conjunction with the National Health Service. And 10% of patients who took the test there tested positive for elevated levels of protein, which indicated a previously unknown kidney disease.
“We know that most patients with kidney disease and protein in their urine are untested and therefore go undiagnosed,” said Dr. Joe Coresh — a Professor of Epidemiology, Medicine and Biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University — who contributed towards the development of international kidney disease guidelines and also heads the company’s clinical advisory board. “Healthy.io’s user-friendly smartphone technology – directly connecting patients at home with the medical system – is a gamechanger addressing a big need. Healthy.io has demonstrated that it can deliver real improvements in line with best clinical practices and high patient satisfaction.”
How does it work? The unique smartphone urinalysis provides an end-to-end service where testing can be conducted at home by using a smartphone camera to scan a dipstick. These results are sent directly to doctors and are integrated with existing medical records. Currently, Healthy.io’s digital urinalysis pathway is already being used by more than 100,000 patients through strategic partnerships. Healthy.io has partnerships with several healthcare organizations around the world including Siemens Healthineers, the National Health Service in the UK, the US National Kidney Foundation, Geisinger Health, Clalit, Maccabi, and Meuhedet.
“We are reinventing existing paradigms of prevention,” added Healthy.io founder and CEO Yonatan Adiri in a statement. “Instead of spending money and other resources to get people to come to the lab, we offer providers a full home-based service. With our ‘pay per protein’ model, we only get paid based on tangible cost improvements we deliver by detecting elevated protein in urine – which identifies previously undetected Chronic Kidney Disease.”
Adiri was named a World Economic Forum “Global Young Leader.” And at the age of 26, he was appointed the first Chief Technology Officer to an Israeli President, Shimon Peres. Plus he was also named one of Time Magazine’s 2018 50 Most Influential People in Healthcare.
“We are thrilled to partner with Yonatan and the Healthy.io team,” Aleph partner Michael Eisenberg commented. “We are inspired by the company’s mission to prevent kidney disease complications, improve ease and quality of care, and ultimately, save lives. We believe that Healthy.io will dramatically reduce the cost of healthcare while increasing quality disease prevention.”
