Medtech Start-Ups: French Company Develops Tricorder-Like Blood Analyzer

A French start-up has designed a hand-held spectroscopy device to carry out about fifteen common blood tests. The analyzer will cost less than € 600.

“Our idea is to avoid using reagents to examine the composition of blood,” explains Mejdi Nciri, Archimej Technology's CEO. The start-up, founded with two other engineering graduates of the Institute of Optics Graduate School in Essonne (France), measures the quantity of chemicals checked for in the blood by studying light beamed through it.

No less than four patents have been registered on the Spectroscopy 2.0 optical technology. This invention comprises two separate light sources emitting different wavelength light beams, a suitable detector (that collects light beams transmitted through blood samples), a signal processor (that determines wavelength absorption), and a spectral multiplex unit consisting of a bi-concave lens and optical prism.

By absorbing the various spectral components of light beams, this device, called Beta-BioLED, can determine the chemical composition of blood samples. The device in the size of a mobile phone, calculates cholesterol and sugar levels, as well as creatinine and albumin levels for renal pathologies and the main cardiac markers. In other words, it can carry out about fifteen of the most common blood tests. This equipment is very easy to use. “All you have to do is put a drop of blood on a test strip inserted into the device. Once the real-time analysis is completed, the results display on a tablet or connected smartphone,” explains Francisco Vega, Archimej Technology's chief financial officer.

Archimej Technology is at the heart of France’s Opticsvalley network and has received many trophies and awards: the Altran Foundation Award (2012); the Île-de-France region’s Business Creation Competition (2013); and Essonne Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Hope of the Economy Trophy (2014). Archimej Technology intends to market its hand-held analyzer for less than €600. “We're not competing with conventional analysis laboratories, which carry out up to 80 different tests. Our technology is complementary. It costs €15-20 to do this many blood tests in a laboratory. We expect to offer the same service 20 times cheaper,” says Camille Pat, Archimej Technology's marketing manager. Archimej Technology is initially targeting healthcare professionals working for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in developing countries, which lack medical infrastructures.

It plans to extend onto the general public market by using the same business model as glucose monitors sold directly to diabetics. The first version of Beta-BioLED should be on the market by 2016. A big push on R&D is still needed to achieve this. Archimej Technology intends to raise 3 million euros to speed up this development.