Women experiencing chronic pelvic pain and other symptoms including infertility often have to suffer through years of appointments and invasive surgeries to get an endometriosis diagnosis. There is often a diagnostic delay of 5-12 years.
Afynia co-founder and CEO Lauren Foster teamed up with Jocelyn Wessels (now Afynia’s Chief Scientific Officer) to solve this, developing a microRNA-based molecular screening test called EndomiR, which is already being used in several fertility clinics as part of its pilot launch. The test, which is based on a simple blood sample, reports results within days.
Earlier this year, Afynia closed a $2-million CAD round of pre-seed funding to develop and bring EndomiR to market. The round was backed by Capital Angel Network (CAN), SOSV, Gaingels, Aventura, and McMaster University’s Seed Fund.
“We have seen other companies come forward in this space, and we’ve seen them flounder,” Foster told BetaKit in an exclusive interview. “If you don’t have both elements … the business and the science [and] tech, it’s not going to work.”
Per BetaKit, Afynia’s longer-term vision involves developing other women’s health products. “We hold other patents for other diagnostic tools that we will begin to roll out once we’ve conquered the Canadian market for EndomiR and we’re on [the] market in the US,” Foster said.
