Confer Health is Democratizing Health Testing
BOSTON, April 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Confer Health has raised $9.5M lead by Social Capital and announces plans to bring the power of a clinical lab into the home with a device that gives you clinical-grade results in minutes. Confer is starting by helping women conceive and then helping them keep their children healthy, and eventually changing how families manage chronic illness. The company's first two products are in development, and will enable at home fertility tracking, and home strep throat detection. Chamath Palihapitiya led the investment for Social Capital, and has joined the board of directors.
"I was initially inspired to build Confer after learning that two of my closest friends were on year three of their struggle with infertility. They had to go through that struggle alone, and I knew there had to be a way to empower them to take control of the situation," said Mounir A. Koussa Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Confer. "The platform we built can measure small molecules, proteins, and even whole cells in basically any bodily fluid so we decided to build a platform that would not only help a couple get pregnant, but could also help parents keep their kids healthy, and help adults manage and even prevent chronic disease."
Confer is building a small, easy-to-use, and affordable device that lets you measure almost anything that a hospital can measure (think blood work, throat swabs, and urine tests). Their first product is a urine-based-test for helping couples conceive by monitoring three fertility hormones. The product consists of a reusable analyzer, disposable cartridges which can test for a variety of biomarkers, and an app which displays the results and guides users through testing and interpreting results.
"This technology has tremendous potential as a fertility diagnostic tool. It allows faster feedback about early stages of pregnancy for couples trying to conceive and would be highly recommended by obstetricians. It even may add insight into the problem of early pregnancy loss by helping us to differentiate pregnancies that are lost prior to implantation and those that occur after," said Dr. Mary Sabatini M.D. Ph.D. Medical Director, Clinic for Reproductive Health and Cancer at Mass General Hospital.
Confer is currently working with the FDA on clearance of their fertility product, Confer Conceive, which is scheduled to be launched next year. Not only will Confer's analyzer help couples grow their families, but it will help keep them healthy too. Months after the launch of Confer Conceive they plan to launch disposable cartridges for detecting Strep Throat that work with the same analyzer used for fertility testing. Confer's development pipeline includes Confer Diagnose with tests for cold, flu, and other infectious diseases, and Confer Manage with panels for diabetes and cardiac health that will enable the whole family to take proactive control of their health.
"Many companies have promised to give consumers control of their health, but Confer's plan to bring the power of a clinical lab into the home is truly game-changing," said Chamath Palihapitiya, founder and CEO of Social Capital. "This team has married breakthrough science with relentlessly user-centric design, and they have a unique perspective on go-to-market, supporting fertility first and expanding into new areas to keep a growing family healthy."
Confer was founded by researchers from Harvard, MIT and Princeton who knew there must be a way to bring the power of a clinical lab into the home to enable everyone to better understand their bodies. They started by understanding the fundamental physics and chemistry of diagnostics and developed an entirely new way of measuring urine, blood, and saliva at home to enable everyone to take proactive control of their health and live their healthiest lives. The team has since grown to include clinical and regulatory experts, engineers, and designers all focused on building a product that is brings the power of a clinical lab into the home while being an absolute delight to use.
Visit www.confer.health to learn more/apply for open positions. [email protected]
Confer Health, empowers people to make health decisions with confidence by giving everyone access to clinical-grade testing at home. This is enabled by their unique technology that is orders of magnitude more sensitive and more affordable than what's available at hospitals or clinical labs. Realizing that moms are often the guardians of health in the home, Confer is starting by helping women conceive, then enabling them to keep their children healthy with tests for infectious disease, and ultimately helping the whole family to live their healthiest lives with tests for managing and even preventing chronic illness. Confer Health, headquartered in Boston, was founded in October of 2015 and is tirelessly working to usher in an era or proactive medicine so everyone can get the care they need before it's too costly or too late.
SOURCE Confer Health, Inc.
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