Founded in 2015 and based out of Bengaluru, Inito is the brainchild of IIT Roorkee alumnus Aayush Rai and IIT Madras alumnus Varun AV. Inito is a medical technology company building the next generation of portable diagnostic devices that are not just accurate and reliable, but are also smart and easy to use, allowing a single device to perform dozens of lab-grade diagnostic tests at home just using your smartphone and the Inito device. They have bagged three design awards — the CII Design Award, the India Design Award and the Japanese Good Design Award.
While working at Siemens Research, Varun and Rai realised that disease patterns in India are shifting more to lifestyle diseases like diabetes, heart disease, fertility etc which need continuous monitoring and lifestyle changes on an individual’s part to keep them in check. That’s when they got the idea and started Inito as a home diagnostics company that would allow people to monitor their body at home and achieve their health goals. “We started building the product in 2015, started a pilot project with 100 people in 2016 and finally launched the product commercially in December 2017. We have been growing over 20-30 per cent every month since then,” says Rai.
Inito has been developed to support and supplement pathology labs and not to replace them. “With changing lifestyles and increasing urbanisation, India is facing an increase in the number of cases of non-communicable diseases like diabetes, heart disease, infertility, thyroid etc. A report by World Health Organisation has revealed that the prevalence of these diseases is expected to rise by 57 per cent by 2020 and developing nations like India will be the hardest hit. Regular monitoring of chronic conditions will allow one to take corrective actions. Diseases can be caught early on before they become chronic hence reducing visits to the already overburdened hospitals,” informs Rai. With the help of the Inito device, trends of data about health parameters can be combined with the user’s lifestyle information, to suggest insights about healthier lifestyle choices that can help them achieve their health goals.
The Inito platform is powered by their patent pending ‘Flat Lens’ technology that allows a user to test for glucose, thyroid, cholesterol, hormones, vitamins, STDs etc — all on a single portable device using Inito’s app on their smartphones. Their first test is an ovulation tracker targeted at couples trying to conceive. They are planning on launching diabetes, cholesterol and Vitamin D tests in the next six months.
Inito’s Flat Lens’ technology uses the phone’s camera as the primary sensor. The app is the only user interface and all the algorithms are run on the cloud. “By combining the hardware of the phone and processing power of the cloud, Inito is able to achieve a 99.12 per cent correlation to lab grade devices at 1 per cent the cost of lab devices (Rs 3,000 vs Rs 3,000000).
Simple to use
Inito is both accurate and budget-friendly. Says Rai, “At Inito, we make sure that we conduct extensive trials and testing on the devices. Our device has been validated by Instrumentation Design Centre, IIT Delhi, and has been found to have a 99.12 per cent correlation to lab equipment. We are one of the only few companies who puts their accuracy report right on the website (www.inito.com) for anyone to look at. We manufacture our tests in ISO approved facilities and extensively show the doctor community our data and accuracy reports. The device and app are simple to use. Anyone who can use a phone app like WhatsApp can use Inito. We also have a clinical support team who are biomedical engineers available to help consumers in case they have any difficulty in testing.”
Their first test, the fertility monitor is a home diagnostic test that enables women to track their fertile days at home in an easy and convenient manner. “The other home ovulation tests in the market only measure 1 hormone and are confusing to read and interpret while Inito’s Fertility Test measures both oestrogen and Luteinizing Hormone (LH) in urine and also understands cycle variations to give highly accurate results unique to every individual woman’s cycle and thus increases her chance of getting pregnant naturally by 89 per cent. The device has been medically tested and the results were found to be comparable to those with follicular ultrasound scans,” claims Rai.
Should a patient consult a doctor while conducting the test? Answers, Rai, “The test itself is user-friendly, so there is no need for any external help and one can easily conduct the test themselves. However, the test only tells you about your ovulation cycle and the best days for getting pregnant, so for any other problem one should always consult a doctor.”
