Truvian nets $27M to build its comprehensive benchtop blood testing machine

Truvian Sciences raised $27.1 million to fuel the development of its benchtop blood tester, bringing the San Diego-based company’s total funding to date up to $46.3 million.

The series B round was led by GreatPoint Ventures with additional backing from DNS Capital, Tao Capital Partners and previous investor Domain Associates.

"I am thrilled to be leading Truvian, a company with a disruptive and advanced technology platform with the potential to significantly improve peoples' lives," said President and CEO Jeff Hawkins, who previously served as a vice president at Illumina and general manager of the sequencing company’s reproductive and genetic health division.

The company’s goal is to provide a compact, automated and ultimately FDA-cleared system that can run a series of lab tests on a single blood sample in about 20 minutes. It is designed for doctors’ offices or a retail setting and would deliver results to clinicians and patients digitally. Additionally, Truvian aims to use dry reagents, which are shelf stable at room temperature.

"More and more consumers are refusing to accept the status quo of healthcare and are saying no to expensive tests, inconvenient appointments and little to no access to their own test results,” Hawkins said in a statement.

“In parallel, retail pharmacies are rising to fill demand, becoming affordable health access points,” he added. “By bringing accurate, on-site blood testing to convenient sites, we will give consumers a more seamless experience and enable them to act on the vast medical insights that come with regular blood tests.”

The company is working toward a CE mark and an FDA submission for a 510(k) clearance in 2020, along with a CLIA waiver application to allow the system to be used outside of an equipped and regulated laboratory.

Truvian hopes to combine chemistry tests, immunoassays and hematology assays into its diagnostic device to offer a panel covering 40 of the most commonly ordered exams—such as lipid and metabolic panels and complete blood cell counts as well as tests for thyroid, liver and kidney function.

“By developing an accurate, convenient and affordable alternative to off-site labs, Truvian is poised to raise the bar for consumers by providing them with immediate insights to inform their healthcare decisions," said Ashok Krishnamurthi, managing partner at GreatPoint Ventures, which led the round.

Alongside the series B raise, Truvian brought on Katherine Atkinson to be its new chief commercial officer—who previously held the same position at Epic Sciences, makers of single-cell profiling hardware. Atkinson has also served as VP of business development and strategic partnerships at Edico Genome and has held leadership roles at Illumina.

The company also announced that Paul Meister has joined its board of directors. Meister has previously served as chairman of the board of Thermo Fisher Scientific and chairman and CEO of inVentiv Health.