HemaChrome, a digital health company that uses smartphone technology to measure hemoglobin developed by a professor at West Lafayette, Ind.-based Purdue University, won the first phase of the National Institutes of Health's RADx Tech for Maternal Health Challenge.
The company received a cash prize from the NIH. HemoChrome will meet with NIH experts twice a week to move on to the next phase of the NIH challenge, according to a Feb. 15 Purdue news release.
"Conventional blood hemoglobin tests are usually conducted by invasive and expensive venous blood draws, which require sophisticated equipment, highly trained experts to run the tests and patients who must be present on-site with their health care provider," Young Kim, PhD, HemoChrome's founder and a professor at Purdue, said. "Our simple app is intended to eliminate these barriers and make these tests accessible to everyone, especially those in health care deserts, by allowing clinicians to conduct point-of-care, home-based and remote diagnostic tests on their patients at a fraction of the cost."