Vidcare Technologies, has raised US $ 300K in a pre-seed round led by Social Alpha, with participation from Lavni Ventures and Derbi Foundation. The funds will be used to further product development, clinical testing, real world effectiveness and early commercialisation. . Vidcare, the 2019 winner of The India Innovation Growth Programme (IIGP), has developed the revolutionary, patented Mu-sure technology – a lab-on-a-chip platform, an alternative for conventional methods that use laborious operations and bulky devices to make diagnostic testing convenient, accessible and available to anyone, anywhere, anytime and help with faster results for clinical decisions. Founded in 2017, Vidcare is led by Rohan Aggarwal, Karan Aggarwal and Saurabh Kumar Srivastava.
Unlike other solutions globally, Vidcare has been able to eliminate the need to use any additional device or attachment to provide quantifiable results, which is a major technological breakthrough in the area of point-of-care diagnostics. Since healthcare is centralized and patients travel to access it (sick-care), inefficiencies arise, leading to delayed testing and diagnosis and/or poor health outcomes.
Rohan Aggarwal, Founder, Vidcare said, “This new round of funding will be used to complete product development and commercialisation post regulatory approvals, in addition to working on additional applications on this technology. Our vision is to use the Mu-sure platform to create diagnostic tests to ease access for a wide range of – high-quality diagnostics to both urban and rural areas.”
“The first product of Vidcare Technologies focuses on hypothyroidism testing which is a major health ailment and is estimated to affect more than 150 million Indians”, Aggarwal added
Dr. Kshama Kothari, Director – Health and Wellness, Social Alpha, said “At Social Alpha, we are excited about the future of diagnostic medicine, particularly in the field of point-of-care diagnostics. We observe a gradual growth in the ‘decentralization’ of laboratory tests i.e., tests and analysis are being performed at the bedside, in-clinic, or by the patients themselves at home. Vidcare’s expandable platform, will create a portfolio of accurate, easy to use point of care quantitative tests for monitoring health as well as chronic disorders.”
The Mu-sure technology is an equipment-free blood diagnostic platform using a microfluidics lab-on-a-chip based sandwich immunoassay. A self-contained chip with high test accuracy and quantifiable results, the single-use credit-card-sized tool provides results without the need for any additional electronic reader.. This enables patients, their families and healthcare workers to monitor existing health conditions and screen for infections in patient’s homes. Results can immediately be shared with the doctor to help make much faster clinical decisions. The first application of this technology is an affordable, self-administered hypothyroidism diagnosis test (TSH) that will be used during pregnancy, for thyroid management in other hypothyroidism patients and for screening for congenital hypothyroidism.
Vasu Guruswamy, Partner, and Co-founder of Lavni Ventures, added, “The innovative and affordable Vidcare platform for point-of-care quantitative testing is expected to find application in diagnostic services for a wide range of healthcare problems. At Lavni Ventures, we find it particularly exciting that the deep technology-based Vidcare platform has a high potential for social impact in remote settings with low resources where skilled personnel may be hard to find”
Over the next 5 years, Vidcare intends to become a leading brand in the point-of-care and consumer diagnostics space in India and abroad, providing at home tools to patients to monitor their existing health conditions or test for infections.
“This will be achieved by developing a strong test portfolio coupled with a digital infrastructure to help consumers manage their conditions efficiently. Vidcare will also be focusing on making their products available to remote areas via partnerships with the public health systems, NGOs, and pharma companies”, Aggarwal concluded.
