Salignostics, a Jerusalem medical startup, has raised $8 million in a Series A financing round in order to mass market their rapid saliva-based test kits. The funding has been headed by angel investor, Avigdor Orlinsky, and has included many private investors. They have raised $16 million total so far to support commercialization, development, and marketing efforts overseas and in Israel. The funding will support the opening of a new plant, which is still under construction, in the Lavon Industrial Zone in Northern Israel.
A team of researchers experienced in the details of saliva founded Salignostics in 2016. The team includes Professor Aaron Palmon, a world-class researcher in salvia, and head of the Authority of Research Students in Experimental Sciences at the Hebrew University; Dr. Omer Deutschmark, CEO of Salignostics; Dr. Guy Krief, deputy CEO and Director of Business Development; Dr. Raluca Cohen, who serves as Chief Scientific Officer; and Dr. Yoav Neumann, who serves as Senior Researcher.
“Saliva is the key to rapid diagnostics for a variety of medical reasons,” said Guy Krief, deputy CEO and Director of Business Development, Salignostics. “Quintessentially it is the only non-invasive, easy, and hygienic means to detect hormones, viruses, and even diseases. With SaliStick, we are leveraging the powerful diagnostic abilities we have been able to create from analyzing saliva. We are delivering a product that completely removes the need for blood and urine samples when testing for pregnancy.”
The founders developed user-friendly products that accurately detect a range of physiological conditions including Covid-19 and pregnancy, based on simple saliva tests. They began commercializing their intellectual property and developed additional products to detect malaria, Helicobacter pylori, cardiac risk, and other diseases. They were able to raise pre-seed and seed capital from private investors while receiving four grants from the Israel Innovation Authority.
“The capital raised will enable us to leverage the full business potential of our proprietary platform, and benefit from the strong pending demand. The platform sets a new and breakthrough standard for rapid tests in general and saliva-based tests in particular. The future diagnostics world will become increasingly accessible to personal and home use, which can be done anywhere by anyone. Salignostics’ technology realizes this vision.”- Omer Deutsch, co-founder and CEO, Salignostics.
The diagnostic test is a home kit that takes only minutes. They have recently developed their new SaliCov which is a compact and accurate Covid-19 self-test kit. The kit has recently obtained Medical Devices and Accessories (AMAR) from Israel’s Ministry of Health for institutional Point of Care use, European CE-IVD approval to market across the European Union, and RADx (Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics Initiative for COVID-19) grant financed by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). The tests are being used in Spain and the company has just signed agreements for large-scale purchases in other countries.
The company got involved in the earliest stages of combating Covid-19 at educational and community centers across Israel. They demonstrated efficiency in outbreak prevention by breaking the infection chain.
In addition to the Covid test, Salignostics has developed SaliStick– the world’s first rapid saliva-based pregnancy test kit. This kit has obtained European CE certification and Medical Devices and Accessories approval from Israel’s Ministry of Health. In 2021 SaliStick was presented at the Medica 2021 Trade Fair in Germany where they received a lot of press from visitors and the global media.
About Salignostics
Salignostics was founded in 2016 at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem by a group of five like-minded Ph. D.s who identified a growing need for a cost-effective means to monitor health status, disease onset, progression, and treatment outcome through non-invasive means.
The founders are graduates of the Hebrew University’s Faculty of Dental Medicine who all dealt with various aspects of saliva during their doctoral studies. The Salignostics team observed that pregnancy tests were the most common tests in pharmacies and set out to investigate how pregnancy could be detected via saliva instead of the common blood or urine tests.
They started all the developments and all the technologies, and today have a toolbox of technologies that can be combined and optimized for any blood-based diagnostics application.
For further information, see: https://www.salignostics.com/
Source: StartupHub
