A startup that's developing tests that run on a drop of blood just raised $36 million
(This Genalyte device contains multiple chips, each of which can measure for 128 different factors.Kevin Loria/Business Insider)
Though Theranos may have brought a lot of negative headlines to the blood-testing industry over the last year, all is not lost for other companies hoping to "disrupt" the blood-testing industry.
On Sunday, Genalyte, a company that's developing tests that run on a drop of blood, raised a $36 million round of funding from Khosla Ventures and Redmile Group. Both firms previously invested in Genalyte in 2015. Altogether, Genalyte's raised $82 million.
Genalyte CEO Cary Gunn told Business Insider that the latest investment will help the company perfect the technology and bring the first sets of tests it to the FDA for approval.
How Genalyte's technology works
Diagnostics is a roughly $50 billion industry in which companies have tried to make faster, more convenient blood tests.
That's why Genalyte's working on developing rapid tests that use only a drop of blood for diseases like rheumatoid arthritis on its Maverick Detection System Platform that can be performed at the doctors' office.
The test, which takes under 15 minutes to run, is meant to be done at the doctors' office, so that patients can get their diagnosis right away, rather than waiting for bloodwork to come back.
Genalyte's been working to validate the tests, and earlier in November, it presented two sets of clinical data at a American College of Rheumatology meeting earlier this month. One study was able to show that Genalyte's finger-stick test was able to get similar results to what a traditional blood draw got.
The Maverick technology is still a couple of years out from getting approval and showing up in doctors' offices, but Genalyte and other companies in the space are "plugging along," Gunn said.
"The fact that the world now believes that decentralized testing is valuable for patients … it’s going to be a much better patient-physician experience," Gunn said.
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