Diagnostics · Sample preparation
Boost Sensitivity. Mitigate Inhibition. Own the OTC Market.
80×
Concentration for lateral flow immunoassays
↓ 2–5 Ct
Better than purification
30 sec
Processing time
0
Centrifugation or purification
The problem
Skip the 2-hour extraction. Our manual liquid filtration device concentrates and purifies samples in seconds, mitigating the matrix effect to deliver an average 3 Ct value improvement over traditional qPCR kits. Without the need for extra extraction/purification.
By stripping away inhibitors and concentrating non-invasive samples, like urine and oral gargle, into a highly purified sample, we provide the lab-grade accuracy required to finally unlock and expand your OTC market reach.
OEM Integration
Drop-in sample prep for the platforms you already use.
Molecular: PCR / Isothermal Amplification
Mechanically concentrates dilute targets, and removes sample inhibitors, causing an equivalent 4–20x increase in sample concentration. Protects sensitive assay chemistry from sample matrix inhibitors, and enables at-home molecular tests to achieve central-lab performance without complex hardware.
Lateral Flow Immunoassay
Concentrates dilute, non-invasive samples (like gargle or urine) to the high microbial concentrations required for lateral flow immunoassay. A third party independently observed an 80-fold decrease in LoD after utilizing the concentration device.
The Hero Concentrator™: see it in action
The Mechanism
A hand operated disposable device engineered for mass-market performance.
The user collects a high-volume (10mL – 30mL), low-concentration liquid sample (such as urine, gargle, or microbial rinse solution) directly into the device.
By simply screwing the components shut, the cup harnesses immense manual pressure to force the fluid through our proprietary filtration module eliminating the need to centrifuge. This mechanical wash actively strips away the salts, proteins, and complex biological junk that inhibit downstream assays, leaving only the pure, concentrated target behind.
Excess liquid and complex inhibitors are permanently discarded. The highly concentrated biological payload is captured directly on our filter membrane, which is seamlessly removed from the device.
The captured membrane delivers the concentrated target directly into the downstream assay of your choice, ready to amplify, with the inhibitors left behind.
Platform potential
Our mechanical concentrator relies on sample-agnostic physics. Review our internal proof-of-concept data or partner with us to unlock new matrices.
We have generated strong internal data demonstrating the concentration of Strep bacteria from simple gargle washes and STI pathogens from high-volume urine (10mL – 30mL). By mitigating the Matrix Effect in these specific fluids, while in parallel concentrating the target analyte, we are building the foundation for highly sensitive, swab-free diagnostics.
Driven by sample-agnostic physics, our filtration platform is positioned to tackle various liquid matrices. Over the coming months, we will expand our R&D to explore applications including bovine mastitis (raw milk), TB (oral gargle/oral rinse), food pathogen testing, oncology liquid biopsies, veterinary fluids, and environmental water.
Are you trying to concentrate bacteria from large volumes of urine, oral rinse, gargle, or microbial rinse solutions? We want to hear from you. Our engineering team works directly with OEM partners to adapt our core mechanics and test them against your specific diagnostic needs.
Talk to our engineersDesigned for Telehealth
There is currently no FDA-cleared at-home Strep test because traditional swabs fail in the hands of untrained consumers.
That is why we built EZSTREP. By allowing for prefiltration and concentrating a simple gargle, EZSTREP eliminates user error and delivers a consistent, lab-quality sample.
This swab-free capability unlocks the path to true digital health integration and remote prescribing, allowing you to dominate the massive over-the-counter market.
Don’t let your competitors get there first.
The 1st and only swab-free home strep test
In development. Not approved by the FDA.
Sexual health · OTC opportunity
Over a million STIs are acquired every day worldwide, yet there is still no rapid at-home test for men, and women are limited to invasive vaginal swabs. Urine is the only universal sample, but its inhibitors crash standard home tests. The Hero Concentrator changes that, transforming raw urine into a concentrated, ultra-pure payload so OEM partners can launch the first truly universal, swab-free, at-home STI testing platform.
Explore the sexual health opportunityDirect solutions
We bridge the physical gap between complex, low-concentration, biological samples and your detection platforms without the need for centrifugation.
Complex inhibitors block molecular reactions, causing high failure rates, demanding expensive onboard extraction, and keeping your sensitivity falling short of FDA performance requirements.
Mitigation of inhibitors via mechanical prefiltration. Deliver pure, concentrated quality samples. Drop Ct between 2-5 cycles, without centrifugation and extra purification.
High-sensitivity diagnostics currently demand high microbial loads, which are typically only isolated via invasive deep-tissue swabs. This mandatory invasiveness introduces critical user-error risks and creates a strict regulatory barrier that often blocks FDA over-the-counter (OTC) clearance for home use.
A shift to fully non-invasive collection: gargle or urine. High-purity target capture from dilute specimens bridges the sensitivity gap and unlocks a path to FDA OTC clearance for STIs, Strep, and more.
Working with a tiny, dilute biological payload means sample degradation during shipping reduces analyte viability, leading to lower detection rates, invalid results, and retesting costs.
Our technology handles 10–30 mL of fluid, concentrating the entire payload onto a membrane. Direct transfer into a stabilization vial, with no pipetting and no biohazard liquid handling.
The opportunity
Current over-the-counter (OTC) molecular tests, like disposable PCR units, are too expensive for the mass market. Our sample-prep technology breaks this price barrier. By delivering a high-quality, concentrated sample, we allow partners to use much cheaper and simpler tests (like LAMP, RPA, or lateral flow) without losing accuracy.
Because we use non-invasive samples (like urine or gargle), we also simplify the regulatory path for home use. We lower the total cost of the kit and remove the technical hurdles, finally making high-performance OTC testing affordable for everyone.