Withings, an organization that makes related medical gadgets, introduced on Tuesday that it’s growing a miniaturized platform that may analyze urine at house.

The corporate, which was based in 2008, relies in France and has places of work within the U.S., China and Hong Kong. With its new providing, Withings is in search of to promote a tool that faucets into the wealth of well being data that’s current in each day urine.

Greater than 3,000 metabolic biomarkers may be assessed by way of urine, which makes it one of many gold requirements of well being evaluation, mentioned Withings CEO Mathieu Leombe. Analyzing these biomarkers might help diagnose and monitor sure ailments like diabetes, continual kidney illness, kidney stones and urinary tract an infection, he identified.

Withing’s new machine, referred to as U-Scan, sits inside a rest room bowl. It consists of a pebble-shaped reader and a changeable evaluation cartridge designed to evaluate particular biomarkers. The machine robotically captures small quantities of urine and channels it into the evaluation cartridge, which shortly begins chemical evaluation. U-Scan robotically transmits readable outcomes by way of Wi-Fi to Withings’ app.  

The machine is being developed for the buyer sector in addition to the skilled medical market. Leombe acknowledged that his firm is usually in comparison with different firms like Apple and Fitbit, however these firms haven’t come out with an at-home urine evaluation product but.

For the buyer market, Withings will promote a U-Scan with an evaluation cartridge for ladies’s month-to-month cycle monitoring and a U-Scan with a cartridge for vitamin and hydration monitoring. These gadgets might be accessible for buy in Europe this 12 months following regulatory clearance, Leombe mentioned. 

He additionally mentioned every U-Scan starter equipment might be priced at $499. There may be an extra subscription price of $30 per thirty days, which gives clients with automated cartridge refills each 3 months. 

As for the skilled medical market, Withings has some analysis collaborations underway with Dr. Marie Courbebaisse and Dr. Franck Perez, who’re each medical researchers primarily based in Paris. Dr. Courbebaisse is starting a medical examine to see how the machine improves follow-up take care of sufferers with cystine renal lithiasis and uric acid renal lithiasis. Dr. Perez is learning how the machine can be utilized to non-invasively detect bladder and ovarian most cancers relapse.

Collaborating with medical professionals to know one of the best use instances for U-Scan’s know-how will stay a precedence for Withings, Leombe declared.

“Presently [U-Scan’s analysis cartridges] may be tailor-made to investigate a mixture of markers reminiscent of pH, particular gravity, ketones, vitamin C, albumin and creatinine, however Withings chemistry groups can be found to assist medical professionals create bespoke cartridges for his or her use case,” he mentioned.

Picture: Withings