Mar 18, 2020
Palo Alto, Calif., March 18, 2020 — 70+ StartX Med Innovators with Medical Breakthroughs for the Prevention, Diagnostics and Treatment of Coronavirus Mobilize Efforts to Fast-Track Public Health Needs During Pandemic. StartX, a non-profit startup community of more than 1500 Stanford faculty and alumni founders, announces the launch of its StartX Med COVID-19 Task Force and the mobilization of its breakthrough medical companies providing solutions for the prevention, diagnostics and treatment of the novel coronavirus. The group of leading scientists, physicians and professor entrepreneurs will collaborate on outreach to government agencies, regulatory bodies and healthcare systems in the interest of public health.
Among the many leading-edge biotech, medical device and digital health companies solving critical needs during the COVID-19 pandemic are physicians working with positive cases, companies with FDA cleared solutions and those that are on the fast-track with the CDC. The following are a few ways the StartX Med COVID-19 Task Force is working to provide hope, flatten the curve, and combat the novel coronavirus:
- Rapid tests suitable for drive through testing, nursing homes, and ER rooms with results in 10 minutes
- Applications and hardware to assess respiratory issues
- Rapid solutions to fight developing sepsis and correlating antibiotic resistance resulting from COVID-19 severe complications
- COVID-19 related applications for remotely monitoring quarantined patients and healthcare workers who have been exposed
- Rapid RNA testing technologies
- Testing that provides information on the presence, type and severity of infections
- Solutions for optimizing hospital operations and supply chain tracking
- Solutions for automated quarantine management and remote virtual triage
- A centrifuge system which is readily deployable for remote sample collection and prep
- A handheld device measuring temperature, lung sounds, airway pressure, pulmonary function, ECG, and SPO2
- Remote monitoring for respiratory diseases, and other StartX Med technologies already deployed in Wuhan, China
- Free access to the Bioz research platform for biopharma companies
- Free virtual COVID-19 evaluation, screening and escalation tool for any hospital in the U.S. to help preserve clinical resources for patients who warrant in-person care
- StartX Med therapeutics companies with new antiviral drugs to treat COVID-19 and the most common lung disease caused by it, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), are accelerating their efforts to take their treatments into clinical settings.
“One of our first goals would be for existing StartX genetics companies to be able to ramp-up their current solutions for molecular testing of COVID-19 diagnostics and work with local and state officials and government agencies on deployment,” stated Dr. Michael Niaki, StartX Med COVID-19 Task Force Lead for the Diagnostics Subgroup.
Current StartX Med COVID-19 Task Force Participants include:
Prevention: DawnLight Technologies – Luma Health – Mon Ami – Theranova – Tueo – Qventus
Diagnostics: Avails Medical – Eko – Enable Biosciences – Inflammatix – Lucira Health – Magnetic Insight Mendo – Nirmidas Biotech, Inc. – ProbiusDx – Sandstone Diagnostics – Sensio Air – Sentinel Healthcare – Spire Health – Subtle Medical – Quantumcyte
Treatment: Augmedix – Bioz – Bright.md – Chimera Bio – GEn1E – Globavir BioSciences – Guided Clarity – InfiniGene –KangarooHealth – OMNY – Orcabio – Parzival – Potrero – Qventus – Spot Biosystems – Line Up Health – Wellsheet
“As the number of positive cases continue to soar in the outbreak of COVID-19, there is an imminent need for reducing barriers companies are experiencing with therapeutic medical breakthroughs needing to be deployed,” stated Joseph Huang, CEO of StartX. “We’ve always said that our community of industry leaders can achieve more as a group than as individuals and this is a prime example of how quickly StartX companies and the Stanford entrepreneurship ecosystem can mobilize and come together in times of crisis.”
In addition to partnering in outreach to government agencies and public health offices for immediate deployment of life-saving medical solutions, the coalition will offer investors a special COVID-19 Task Force version of StartX’s Online Investor Demo Day viewings to coordinate introductions between StartX Med companies tackling COVID-19 and VCs specifically interested in investing in this space. Both StartX’s General Investor Demo Day and COVID-19 specific viewings are slated to begin March 19, 2019.
Media Note: Leading Physician and Scientist Expert Sources Available for Comment
About StartX
StartX is a nonprofit organization advancing the development of Stanford’s top entrepreneurs through experiential education, access to thousands of VCs and investors, and a Who’s Who of industry leaders and serial entrepreneurs providing mentorship. The founder community consists of a diverse mix of 1500+ well-funded Growth-Stage Founders, tenured Stanford Professor Founders, and highly-successful Stanford Alumni Founders. Collectively, StartX companies have raised $8 billion in funding with a combined valuation of more than $25 billion to date. StartX’s Corporate Innovation program helps global corporations quickly test market-ready technology from Stanford alumni founders through structured co-creation and pilot programs. Ranked as a number one accelerator nationally by MIT’s Seed Accelerator Rankings Project, StartX venture funded companies have a 92% survival and acquisition rate in a wide range of industries from consumer Internet and retail products to enterprise software, biotechnology and medical devices.
StartX and StartX Med, the medical entrepreneurial vertical of StartX, includes accomplished founders ranging from undergraduates and masters students to post docs, professors and Stanford alumni being mentored by top Silicon Valley industry leaders. For medical tech founders homegrown at Stanford’s School of Medicine, having intimate access to domain experts and care environments has been fundamental to their success. StartX Med entrepreneurial scientists are changing the world with medical breakthroughs and successful life-saving research trials, including an average of more than six FDA approvals per year. Clinical partners of StartX Med companies encompass more than 250 hospitals, 30,000 care centers, 50,000 physicians and 65 million annual patient visits. StartX Med founders also have the opportunity to utilize 2,000 square feet of shared wet lab space at the StartX facility, located down the street from Stanford University. StartX continues to be a unique startup community compared to accelerators and incubators and does not take equity in companies for admittance into its programs. For information on the StartX Med COVID-19 Task Force or how you can help, please send inquiries to: [email protected]
Contacts
Laurie Peters, Communications Director
StartX
[email protected]
(818) 635-4101
Mar 4, 2020
Burlingame, Calif., March 4, 2020 — Novel Machine Learning Host-Response-Based Approach Forms the Basis of Company’s Tests. Inflammatix, a pioneering molecular diagnostics company delivering precision medicine at the point of care, announced findings from a new study published today in Nature Communications that demonstrate its ability to identify patients with bacterial versus viral infections using a data-driven approach that measures the immune system response. The molecular classifier used in the study forms the basis of Inflammatix’s HostDx rapid tests, which the company is developing to overcome traditional challenges of diagnosing acute infections and sepsis.
“When seeing a sick patient with a suspected infection in the emergency room, most physicians are forced to basically make an educated guess about whether the patient has a bacterial or viral infection, and then treat accordingly. Unfortunately, despite best efforts, this guessing game can have terrible outcomes for patients and for our health system” said Tim Sweeney, M.D., Ph.D., cofounder and chief executive officer of Inflammatix.
“For 20 years, researchers have been looking for a way to use transcriptomics – the study of the body’s gene expression – to classify patients with acute infections. To date, others’ attempts to apply machine learning to this problem have not held up when applied to diverse patient populations. Our new study is the first time that a locked, multi-gene signature has been validated in a blinded, independent clinical cohort. It represents a major technical breakthrough in translating our tests to the clinic.”
For the new publication, Inflammatix and Stanford scientists applied advanced machine learning to develop a 29-gene classifier (“BVN-1”) that can identify bacterial, viral or no infections across 1,069 blood samples from 18 prior studies of patients diagnosed with acute infections. The patients represented a wide range of geographic regions, clinical care setting and disease contexts.
The researchers then tested the locked classifier – i.e., without modification or retraining – on an independent cohort of 109 patients from Stanford University’s intensive care unit who underwent evaluation for acute infection and sepsis. They found that the test was highly accurate in diagnosing infections, especially among patients tested within 36 hours of hospital admission – a critical time for determining treatment. Among this subset, the test demonstrated an AUROC of 0.92 (95% CI; 0.83-0.99) for identifying patients with bacterial infections and 0.91 (95% CI; 0.82-0.98) for viral infections.
The molecular classifier also demonstrated higher accuracy than standard biomarkers – procalcitonin (PCT) and C-reactive protein (CRP) – that have been associated with acute infections and sepsis. Among the subset of patients with PCT and CRP results in the Stanford ICU cohort, the Inflammatix test had an AUROC of 0.87 (95% CI; 0.8-0.94) for bacterial infections, compared to 0.83 (95% CI; 0.75-0.92) for PCT and 0.70 (95% CI; 0.6-.081) for CRP. Neither PCT nor CRP could positively identify viral infections.
“To wit, 100% of the patients in this cohort were on antibiotics, but many did not have an underlying bacterial infection. Improved diagnostics would benefit patients and have a major impact on the healthcare system,” said Dr. Sweeney.
“Furthermore, our machine learning team has demonstrated the power of our computational platform in a highly heterogeneous and difficult field. We look forward to bringing the same computational tools to bear across multiple other infectious and inflammatory diseases.”
Antibiotic resistance and sepsis lead to more than 700,000[i] and 5 million[ii] respective deaths worldwide each year. Inflammatix’s HostDx Sepsis and HostDx Fever tests use proprietary machine learning algorithms that incorporate the expression of multiple immune genes (host response) to identify the presence of bacterial or viral infections and to determine if a patient has or is likely to develop sepsis. Inflammatix’s simple-to-use, sample-to-answer HostDx system is designed to produce results at or near the point of care in 30 minutes or less. The company plans to advance its HostDx tests through commercial launch in Europe and submission to the United States Food and Drug Administration in 2021.
In January 2020, Inflammatix announced it had received $32 million in Series C financing. Prior to that, in November 2019, the company announced a cost-sharing contract with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, to further develop its HostDx tests. The agreement is worth up to $72 million based on achieving certain milestones.*
Citation
Mayhew, MB et al. A generalizable 29-mRNA neural-network classifier for acute bacterial and viral infections. Nature Communications, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14975-w
About Inflammatix
Inflammatix is a molecular diagnostics company that is reimagining diagnostics by “reading” the patient’s immune system to deliver rapid results that improve patient care and reduce major public health burdens. The company’s initial focus is on acute infection and sepsis, where its HostDx™ tests combine proprietary biomarkers and advanced machine learning to help physicians quickly get the right treatments to the right patients. Each test will be developed to run on the company’s sample-to-answer isothermal instrument platform in under 30 minutes, enabling the power of precision medicine at the point of care. The Burlingame, Calif.-based company funders include Khosla Ventures, Northpond Ventures, Think.Health Ventures, Grey Sky Venture Partners and the Stanford-StartX Fund. For more information, please visit www.inflammatix.com and follow the company on Twitter (@Inflammatix_Inc).
*This project has been funded in part with Federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services; Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, under Contract Nos. 75A50119C00034 and 75A50119C00044.
Media Contacts
For Inflammatix:
Tracy Morris
[email protected]
650-380-4413
[i] Interagency Coordination Group on Antimicrobial Resistance. No Time to Wait: Securing the Future from Drug-Resistant Infections; Report to the United Nations. April 2019.
[ii] Rudd KE, et al. Global, regional, and national sepsis incidence and mortality, 1990–2017: analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study. Lancet 2020; 395:200-211.
Jan 10, 2020
Burlingame, Calif., January 10, 2020 — Financing will be used to advance HostDx™ tests for acute infections and sepsis to commercial launch in 2021. Inflammatix, a pioneering molecular diagnostics company delivering precision medicine at the point of care, today announced a $32 million Series C financing. The funding round included participation from existing investors Khosla Ventures, Northpond Ventures and Think.Health Ventures, and new investors that include Grey Sky Venture Partners. The funds will be used to advance Inflammatix’s rapid HostDx™ tests through commercial launch in Europe and submission to the United States Food and Drug Administration in 2021.
“We are pleased to have the support of this strong group of healthcare investors who share our excitement about leveraging the immune response to build novel precision diagnostics for infectious and inflammatory disease. In particular, our first tests will help tackle antibiotic resistance and sepsis, two critical public health challenges, by reading the patient’s host-immune response to infection,” said Tim Sweeney, M.D., Ph.D., cofounder and chief executive officer of Inflammatix. “With this financing in hand, we look forward to bringing our rapid HostDx tests into hospitals and clinics so that physicians can quickly get the right treatments to the right patients.”
The Series C funding follows an announcement in November 2019 that the company had signed a long-term cost-sharing contract to develop its tests for acute infections and sepsis with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) worth up $72 million based on achieving certain milestones.*
Antibiotic resistance and sepsis cause more than 700,000 and 5 million deaths worldwide each year, respectively. Traditional methods for diagnosing acute infections are too slow and are often inaccurate because they only look for pathogens in the bloodstream, despite most infections never entering the bloodstream. As a result, patients with suspected infection are often blindly treated with antibiotics – contributing to antibiotic resistance – or sepsis can be missed altogether.
Inflammatix’s HostDx Sepsis and HostDx Fever tests use proprietary machine learning algorithms that incorporate the expression of multiple immune genes (host response) to identify the presence of bacterial or viral infections and to determine if a patient has or is likely to develop sepsis. Inflammatix’s simple-to-use, sample-to-answer HostDx system is designed to produce results at or near the point of care in 30 minutes or less.
“Inflammatix’s team is advancing our knowledge of how to use the immune system and immune responses to improve the diagnosis of acute infections and sepsis,” said Mike Rubin, M.D., Ph.D., founder and chief executive officer of Northpond Ventures. “We believe their innovations in data science expertise and rapid multiplex test system have the power to transform care across a spectrum of medical conditions and diseases.”
About Inflammatix
Inflammatix is a molecular diagnostics company that is reimagining diagnostics by “reading” the patient’s immune system to deliver rapid results that improve patient care and reduce major public health burdens. The company’s initial focus is on acute infection and sepsis, where its HostDx™ tests combine proprietary biomarkers and advanced machine learning to help physicians quickly get the right treatments to the right patients. Each test will be developed to run on the company’s sample-to-answer isothermal instrument platform in under 30 minutes, enabling the power of precision medicine at the point of care. The Burlingame, Calif.-based company funders include Khosla Ventures, Northpond Ventures, Think.Health Ventures, Grey Sky Venture Partners and the Stanford-StartX Fund. For more information, please visit www.inflammatix.com and follow the company on Twitter (@Inflammatix_Inc).
*This project has been funded in part with Federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services; Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, under Contract Nos. 75A50119C00034 and 75A50119C00044.
Media Contacts
For Inflammatix:
Tracy Morris
[email protected]
650-380-4413
Nov 14, 2019
Burlingame, Calif., November 14, 2019 — HostDx Fever Test Reads the Immune System to Rapidly Diagnose Acute Infections at Point of Care. Inflammatix, a pioneering molecular diagnostics company, announced today an agreement with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, to further develop its HostDx™ tests. Under the contract, Inflammatix will receive $6 million in the first phase of a cost-sharing contract worth up to $72 million based on achieving certain milestones.
The new contract will advance development and commercialization of Inflammatix’s simple sample-to-answer, point-of-care HostDx test system, which will produce results in under 30 minutes. The first phase of work will focus on the novel HostDx Fever test. The HostDx Fever test “reads” gene expression patterns in the immune system to quickly identify whether a suspected infection is bacterial or viral, enabling physicians to quickly and accurately determine whether to prescribe antibiotics. The HostDx Fever test will be run from a fingerstick blood sample and will be used primarily in primary care, urgent care and other outpatient clinical settings. Today, an estimated 30 percent of antibiotics are inappropriately prescribed to patients with infections because their infections are not obviously bacterial or viral in origin.
“We are thrilled to receive this funding from BARDA, which will enable us to advance our HostDx Fever test into the clinic where it will help physicians quickly diagnose infections so they can get the right treatments to the right patients. This ability is key to combatting antibiotic resistance, which is one of the most pressing public health challenges of our time,” said Tim Sweeney, M.D., Ph.D., cofounder and chief executive officer of Inflammatix. “Through this public-private sector partnership, we will move precision medicine to the point of care, where it can have an immediate impact on patient outcomes.”
Current methods for diagnosing infections are too slow and often inaccurate, resulting in delayed or inappropriate treatment. Infections are often blindly – and incorrectly – treated with antibiotics, which contributes to antibiotic resistance. Each year at least 2 million Americans become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and at least 23,000 die as a direct result.
The contract may optionally support two additional Inflammatix tests: HostDx Sepsis and HostDx FeverFlu. HostDx Sepsis is a blood-based test that will rapidly diagnose infections in patients in emergency department or other hospital settings and determine which patients are likely to have or develop sepsis. HostDx FeverFlu will be performed on nasal swab samples and will combine traditional influenza testing with host-response biomarkers.
About Inflammatix
Inflammatix is a molecular diagnostics company that is reimagining diagnostics by “reading” the patient’s immune system to deliver rapid results that improve patient care and reduce major public health burdens. The company’s initial focus is on acute infections and sepsis, where its HostDx™ tests combine proprietary biomarkers and advanced machine learning to help physicians quickly get the right treatments to the right patients. Each test will be developed to run on the company’s sample-to-answer isothermal instrument platform in 20-30 minutes, enabling the power of precision medicine at the point of care. The Burlingame, Calif.-based company is funded by Khosla Ventures, Northpond Ventures, the Stanford-StartX Fund and Think.Health Ventures. For more information, please visit www.inflammatix.com and follow the company on Twitter (@Inflammatix_Inc).
This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services; Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, under Contract No. 75A50119C00034.
Media Contacts
For Inflammatix:
Tracy Morris
[email protected]
650-380-4413
Aug 6, 2019
Burlingame, Calif., August 6, 2019 — Inflammatix, a molecular diagnostics company that is reimagining diagnostics, announced today that it has received the American Association for Clinical Chemistry’s (AACC) Disruptive Technology Award for its rapid HostDx™ tests, which read the immune system to improve diagnosis of acute infections and sepsis. The award was based on the company’s presentation during the 71st AACC Annual Scientific Meeting, which is being held August 4-8 in Anaheim, Calif.
“We are extremely honored to receive this prestigious award, which recognizes the power of our proven technology to transform diagnosis of acute infections and sepsis,” said Tim Sweeney, M.D., Ph.D., cofounder and chief executive officer of Inflammatix. “We believe our rapid HostDx tests will enable physicians to more quickly get the right treatments to the right patients, improving patient outcomes and ultimately reducing the global health burdens of antibiotic resistance and sepsis.”
Inflammatix’s first test, HostDx Sepsis, will use proprietary algorithms to read the immune system’s response to infection. The test measures the expression of multiple immune genes to identify the presence of bacterial or viral infections and to determine if a patient has or is likely to develop sepsis. In contrast, while traditional diagnostic approaches look for blood-based pathogens, most infections – and nearly half of sepsis cases – are negative for bloodstream pathogens. Inflammatix’s technology is proven in dozens of studies involving over 2,400 patients and published in leading peer-reviewed journals. The company is developing a proprietary cartridge-based system that will produce rapid results at or near the point of care in 30 minutes or less and plans to seek FDA clearance for the HostDx Sepsis test.
Each year in the United States alone, 20 million patients are assessed for acute infections and sepsis in emergency department and other hospital settings. Sepsis, a life-threatening condition in which the body’s immune system becomes dysregulated fighting an infection, kills more than 250,000 people in the United States each year and is estimated to cause or contribute to over five million deaths worldwide annually.
AACC’s Disruptive Technology Award recognizes innovative testing solutions that improve patient care through diagnostic performance or access to high quality testing. Inflammatix was one of three finalists selected to present to a panel of expert judges during a special session of the AACC meeting. The company was selected based on its technology’s clinical validity, patient impact, market opportunity, business model, competitive analysis, intellectual property strength, regulatory plan, team strength and stage of development.
Inflammatix also received the Audience Choice award based on the audience’s votes for their favorite technology.
About Inflammatix
Inflammatix is a molecular diagnostics company that is reimagining diagnostics by “reading” the patient’s immune system to deliver rapid results that improve patient care and reduce major public health burdens. The company’s initial focus is on acute infections and sepsis, where its HostDx™ tests combine proprietary biomarkers and advanced machine learning to help physicians quickly get the right treatments to the right patients. Each test will be developed to run on the company’s sample-to-answer isothermal instrument platform in 20-30 minutes, enabling the power of precision medicine at the point of care. The Burlingame, Calif.-based company is funded by Khosla Ventures, Northpond Ventures, the Stanford-StartX Fund and Think.Health Ventures. For more information, please visit www.inflammatix.com and follow the company on Twitter (@Inflammatix_Inc).
Media Contacts
For Inflammatix:
Tracy Morris
[email protected]
650-380-4413
May 16, 2019
Burlingame, Calif., May 16, 2019 — Inflammatix announced today that it has been named a finalist for the American Association for Clinical Chemistry’s (AACC) Disruptive Technology Award for its rapid HostDx™ tests, which read the immune system to improve diagnosis of acute infections and sepsis. Inflammatix is one of three finalists that will present its technology at the 71st AACC Annual Scientific Meeting in Anaheim, Calif., during a special session on August 5, 2019.
“We are honored to be selected as a finalist for this prestigious award,” said Tim Sweeney, M.D., Ph.D., cofounder and chief executive officer of Inflammatix. “This recognition underscores the power of our approach of evaluating the body’s immune system to diagnose infections and sepsis faster and more accurately than current methods.”
Inflammatix’s first test, HostDx Sepsis, uses proprietary algorithms to diagnose the host response to infection. Specifically, it measures the expression of multiple immune genes to identify the presence of bacterial or viral infections and to determine if a patient has or is likely to develop sepsis. In contrast, traditional diagnostic approaches look for blood-based pathogens, but most infections – and nearly half of sepsis cases – are negative for bloodstream pathogens. Inflammatix is developing a proprietary cartridgebased point-of-need system that will produce rapid sample-to-answer results in 30 minutes or less and plans to seek FDA clearance for the HostDx Sepsis test.
Sepsis, a life-threatening condition in which the body’s immune system becomes dysregulated fighting an infection, kills more than 250,000 people in the United States each year and is estimated to cause or contribute to over five million deaths worldwide annually.
AACC’s Disruptive Technology Award recognizes innovative testing solutions that improve patient care through diagnostic performance or access to high quality testing.
About Inflammatix
Inflammatix is a molecular diagnostics company that is developing rapid tests that read the immune system, enabling improved patient care and reducing major public health burdens. The company’s initial focus is on acute bacterial and viral infections and sepsis, where its HostDx™ tests will allow physicians to quickly get the right treatments to the right patients, reducing morbidity and mortality, health system costs, and antibiotic resistance. While current tests diagnose infections by “finding the bug” – an approach that misses the 70% of infections that never enter the bloodstream – Inflammatix evaluates the body’s immune system response to provide more accurate and faster diagnosis. Its scientific approach has been validated in over 20 independent cohorts involving over 1,000 patients and published in leading medical journals. The privately held, Burlingame, Calif.-based company is funded by Khosla Ventures, Northpond Ventures, the Stanford-StartX Fund and Think.Health Ventures. For more information, please visit www.inflammatix.com and follow the company on Twitter (@Inflammatix_Inc).
Media Contacts
For Inflammatix:
Tracy Morris
[email protected]
650-380-4413
