Diagtech

My name is Itzeel Cordova, I am a Biotechnology Engineer from Chihuahua, Mexico. I'm co-founder of Diagtech and we are focused on developing innovative medical solutions since 2015. 

As a student I was selected in the Mitacs Globalink program in Canada, here I worked in the Health Innovation Center at the Univeristy of Calgary being part of the research team for the development of hypertension treatments using nanotechnology and analyzing the role of autophagy in endothelial cells.

 During this program I met Alan and Larissa, co-founders of Diagtech who were also selected to work in different providences in Canada. We were the first generation of biotechnology engineer in Chihuahua and Guadalajara (Mexico)  and during this time abroad we noticed we shared a passion, make biotechnology stand out in healthcare providing simple, affordable solutions for patients, in order to improve their quality of life.

Sepsis is a life-threatening complication that kills millions of patients every year worldwide. Those with a compromised immune system are in a higher risk, since symptoms of sepsis are very similar to those of many other illnesses, that makes this very difficult to diagnose, that's why we are developing a digital health device that helps generate alerts to detect infections early, preventing them from becoming sepsis. This device allows detection in a few minutes without the need for sample processing in a lab or any trained personnel.

Having an on-time detection under these circumstances implies the reduction of uncertainty, unnecessary antibiotics, the reduction of costs, the improvement of accurate treatments and the most important the reduction of the mortality rates.

Sepsis is defined as the most severe spectrum of an infection and its concept relies on the exacerbated inflammatory response by the immune system,generating the organs to stop working properly,causing death.It is the most common life-threatening complication that kills about 30 million people worldwide every year.It is a major risk for immunosuppressed patients and they have the worst outcomes due to the inability of their systems to fight infection.This complication is often diagnosed late,as the clinical data and diagnostic tools for its detection are not very specific and symptoms are very similar to those of many other illnesses,making it very difficult to diagnose.
Regularly,physicians keep track of their patients by independent clinical measures,they have lab testing options that may take up to 48 hours to show results.This time is crucial for a patient since this could represent the difference between life and death.Usually,broad-spectrum antibiotics are prescribed to patients even before the lab tests are ready,which triggers new problems such as bacterial resistance

Recently this has also been described as the most common complication for COVID-19, in which 100% of the patients were non-survival.Sepsis mortality can be significantly reduced by early detection; however,this is currently applied in less than 1/7 patients.

We are developing a digital health device that helps generate alerts to detect infections early in immunosuppressed patients, preventing them from becoming sepsis by the measurement of clinical and molecular parameters. The system combines nano and biotechnology that will give a quantitative molecular parameter of the patient's status, this result is analyzed in a mobile app where the clinical data (e.g. blood pressure, SpO2 and temperature) is introduced to correlate both molecular and
clinical data, according to the result, alerts are generated for the healthcare
personnel, allowing them to have fast lab results right next to the patient

Immunosuppressed patients are those whose immune system has been damaged in one of its components and does not protect the body correctly. Cancer patients belong to this type of population since they receive treatments like chemotherapy, that affects the number of white blood cells (cells that fight infection) in the body.

When a cancer patient reaches its NADIR (the moment with the lowest count of white blood cells) is very susceptible to infections, because the body is unable to fight off infections the way it normally would. These infections can become sepsis, the most frequent complication and medical emergency that can lead to organ failure or even death.

We all know that cancer is an overwhelming disease, and just as it can affect physical health it is also a rough emotional road, patients are living in constant uncertainty and sepsis should not be a top worry for them. Sepsis risk CAN be decreased by reducing the time of detection of infections and increasing portable and simple on-site tests reachable for cancer patients, allowing them to improve their life quality.

Sepsis is a very common complication and can be developed by every human being, it is not very known and people is not aware of the importance of its detection or the symptoms to be alert. We believe this major issue should be known by everyone to reduce risks, and for those susceptible such as immunosuppressed people there should be alternatives to detect this on time, avoiding sepsis to take more lives.

One time we were talking with a surgeon (Dr.Bernal) and he was telling us about infections in patients after surgery, especially those that have a weak immune system due to a chronic disease such as diabetes, obesity, cancer and renal failure.

He started talking about how this is not only a concern for the patient or its family but also for them as doctors. I quote: “I cannot enjoy a weekend without thinking about my patient, is he going to develop an infection? There is no way to know, just wait for symptoms”

Not having a tool that could lead a clue for infection was a big decision that relied on him. What If he gets the patient to the OR and it wasn’t actually an infection?

After this talk and having my previous experience with sepsis in my family we came up with the idea of a diagnostic tool that would help physicians eliminate this uncertainty in no more than 20 min.

Unfortunately, I have experienced this problem directly with my family. The uncertainty we faced was very difficult for us. As I mentioned before sepsis can easily be misdiagnosed because of the similarity with other diseases.  My grandfather was misdiagnosed with “gastritis”, he died within one week, weeks later we found it was actually sepsis and now I wish I had known that on time and maybe he would still be here with us.

Every day I work with my team very hard to avoid this pain for other families.

As a team we are three biotechnology specialized in molecular biology.We have been part of 3 NSF- i-Corps cohorts,including one at the MD Anderson Cancer Center;where our team was proudly the first Mexican team to attend.These programs gave us the opportunity to validate our problem and solution with over 150 clients.

Individually, we have experience in the development of biotech products so we are used to work with technical analysis, stability studies,manufactured,molecular lab analysis,formulation and supplier relations.We also have experience in quality assurance and biotech lab management due to previous job experiences.

We have been working together for almost 5 years, we really know how to complement our work and we have 3 key elements.First EMPATHY,we never lose vision of the problem that we are trying to solve.For us, the most important character in our story is the client,so we involve clients at any stage of the development.The second element is EXPERIENCE.We have developed strategies to get to know the market from the inside by creating an alternate business selling and renting surgical medical equipment.Finally, PASSION.We love what we do, and that same feeling was the magnet that joined this team together since we graduated from college 6 years ago.

When we first started working as a startup we were very focused on prevention, we were new in getting to know our client in order to develop new technology. So, we decided to start with a diagnostic test that showed cancer predisposition, since cancer statistics were increasing rapidly throughout the world and this was a new option to reduce the risk and detect it on time. It seemed like a very good idea and it took 10 months to get ready with this test. A lot of work and money was invested on it. When it was time to take it to the market, we found out that people didn’t wanted to prevent, they were scared to know if cancer was going to develop on their bodies. People was used to see a doctor after symptoms appeared, so clearly, they didn’t want our test.

This was a huge obstacle for us, but we took it as a learning experience, we started all over, we were looking for a new idea to develop, until we talked to Dr. Hector Bernal, then we understood that is important to learn first about your client’s problems in order to develop a solution.

When we started our entrepreneurship journey, biotechnology and technology development startups were something new for everyone (we were the first generation of graduated biotech engineers) through these years as entrepreneurs we have worked a long road to differentiate a conventional business from a technology startup as people were used to see in our state.

We thought this road could be simplified for future bioentrepreneurs, allowing them to move faster on their projects, not having to learn a new industry on their own as we did.

This is why we approached Parque Tecnologico Orion, which is the strongest ecosystem for entrepreneurs in Mexico, and we co-developed a 10-month program for startups focused on life science.This program is currently running, we act as program leaders and more than 40 teams have been involved in it. We are very proud of being part of this development for our community,since it has had developed a lot of experiences, academic impact, teaching techniques and business ecosystem awareness.We really love seeing how every day more bioentrepreneurs work on their ideas to change the world!

We are also very proud of developing donation campaigns in our city to provide with equipment for doctors and nurses during COVID-19.

After talking to over 150 clients in Mexico and The US, we know their current solutions, so we tried to fill every hole other products where missing. Based on their feedback, we are focused on providing a result on site, right next to the patient without the need of infrastructure inside the hospital/clinic, having a quantifiable result and at the same time integrate the clinical data, since a qualitative result is not enough to discard sepsis, avoiding a previous sample treatment to shorten the detection time and finally using more than one biomarker to have more conclusive results.

We are currently in the development of our project, including FDA regulations it will be ready in more than a year. The objective is to serve  in a conservative scenario 3 million people in 5 years.

Within the next year and a half, we plan on finishing the beta prototype development, clinical pre-approval and patent processing. After that we will continue with clinical studies, performance verification, hardware and software manufacturing and finally product packaging, to start with sales before we reach our fifth year.

- CIMAV (Advanced Materials Research Center in Chihuahua, Mexico) We worked with the CIMAV for the nanoparticle development for our test.

- CIATEJ (Research Center and Technology/Design assistance in Jalisco, Mexico): We are currently working with them for the cassette prototype development

- Tecnologico de Monterrey: We have been working with molecular biology professors to build the molecular design of the cassette.

- UACH (Chihuahua State University) : We have been working with the medicine faculty for the development of our protocols and technical mentorship

Our business model divides into types of business:

1.hospitals, to be used in the med-surgical floor, here the registered nurse is the user and the medical director along with the COO make the decision for the acquisition of the device;

2. Cancer outpatient clinics that are independent from hospitals, where the physician in charge is the user and decision maker (in clinics that depend on a hospital, the physician is the user but the decision relies on the hospital’s COO). We will start with cold reaching for physicians who own small outpatient clinics (our early adopters),start testing our business model and receive feedback on the technology.

There are two possible ways to make money on this business, have a direct sale by manufacturing the entire product or selling the final product technology (know how) to already established companies with mass-manufacturing capacity. Our business model relies on selling the monitor, and the disposable cassette is going to be our recurrence model, this means that the major profit comes from the cassette.

Grant: Trailblazer and prototype award by CONACyT $4,500 USD June 2019

Investment: Orion Startups LP $300K USD March 2020

We are looking for 100k in grants and a second round of investment for 400k USD . We hope to achieve our second round of investment by November.

1. We want to learn, be coached and partner with the best.
2. We really want to make a change in our health statistics.
3. Overcome financial barriers.

Healthcare accelerators, hospitals, medical device manufacturers, healthcare industry leaders (bayer, johnson and johnson, medtronic)

With a co-development, getting in touch with potential clients, industry knowledge, funding.