By JULIET PRESTON- Med City News, Jan 8,2018
It’s Sunday evening in San Francisco, the night before the madness that is the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference begins.
I meet with a Genalyte representative in the Parc 55 hotel foyer as planned and she escorts me to a fourth-floor room. It’s a small space, but it’s filled with – among other things – two nurses in scrubs, one man in a lab coat, a new-age laboratory station, and a phlebotomy seat. Is this how AI is made? Are they going to remove my brain?
It’s an unusual set-up for JPM, but it’s undoubtedly the best way for Genalyte to show how fast and effective its technology has become. Members of the executive team will be meeting with investors (and the odd journo) over the next few days, drawing their blood and laying the groundwork for a new equity financing round.
It’s not a gimmick; the San Diego, California-based company has now spent 10 years developing its core lab-on-a-chip technology, readying it for blood-based analyses in a doctor’s clinic near you. It began with angel investors, then in late 2016, Genalyte closed a $36 million round led by Khosla Ventures and Redmile Group.
