Health-tech startup Vital Bio secured a total of US$48 million from investors including Sam Altman, 8VC and Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings to advance its medical diagnostics technology.
Two of the company’s co-founders are Waterloo Engineering alumni Dr. Iman Khodadad (PhD ‘16) and Dr. Farnoud Kazemzadeh (PhD ‘15).
Vital Bio unveiled its new device the VitalOne at a conference held by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC). Thanks to the secured investment, the company can further its development of the VitalOne technology and launch clinical studies.
Current diagnostic infrastructure often results in delayed test results, putting patients at risk. The VitalOne is a desktop computer-sized blood diagnostics device that can run comprehensive tests on comparatively small blood samples — in 20 minutes.
The VitalOne is part of the company’s broader vision to make diagnostics ubiquitous and enable new forms of care delivery for everyone from patients managing complex, chronic diseases to people pursuing wellness.
“We always wanted to build a blood testing company — to impact everyone’s lives as opposed to a select few — and we asked: ‘why not now?’” Said Kazemzadeh, the company’s vice-president of engineering.
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