We Just Led an Investment in a Game Changer : Day Zero Diagnostics
By Netalie Nadivi, Partner, Triventures
I’m excited to announce the investment in our newest portfolio company, Day Zero Diagnostics (DZD).
Every now and again, you run into a company and you know instantly that you’ve arrived at something special…let’s not call it love at first sight, but it is kind of the venture capital version of it — that opportunity that doesn’t ring a bell and remind you of the others, yet has a ‘wow’ factor that compels you to start dating. It all began quite innocently when I was planning to attend a medtech conference and due to scheduling conflicts was unable to make it. I reviewed the list of companies attending the conference and only one truly stood out on paper — DZD. Shortly thereafter, in a preliminary screening call with the company, we confirmed that indeed there was a legit wow factor and we ignited our well-oiled diligence engine.
At Triventures, we are big believers that data will transform healthcare. When leveraged together with clinical expertise, superb AI, machine learning, bioinformatics and all the other buzz-word capabilities — data will change how and where we receive healthcare while simultaneously impact healthcare economics. Through the power of data coupled with its core competencies, DZD is set to revolutionize microbiology by disrupting the way in which we diagnose infectious disease, determine antibiotic treatment and the time it takes to do so.
Where We Are Today….
Despite tremendous technological progress over the last decades, some areas in healthcare have remained static and continue to deliver sub-optimal results. The way in which harmful bacterial pathogens are identified and treated is one of these areas. Today, when admitted to the hospital, if clinical symptoms are suspected to be caused by a bacterial infection, a sample (blood, saliva, urine etc.) will be collected and sent to the lab to be cultured. Sample culturing is a well-established method in microbiology, yet laden with drawbacks. The sample is put on a petri dish and then we wait…and wait….and wait some more… not big on religion, but a little prayer here and there may not hurt while the culturing takes its sweet time. What exactly are we waiting for? We wait on that precious, mystery bacteria to grow and to grow enough that it can be precisely identified — this can take 1–5 days or more (recently a family member of mine spent 2 weeks in the hospital and was released with the bacterial pathogen still undetermined). Turns out that 50% of cultures do not grow at all or enough to determine the pathogen conclusively (and this is where the prayer might help). If and when the pathogen has been identified, a process of antibiotic susceptibility testing begins in the lab — attempting to determine which antibiotic the specific pathogen in the petri dish responds best to. This second phase can prolong the process by several more days.
Unfortunately, patient treatment cannot wait for days while the bacteria attempts to grow in the lab. Unlike in the petri dish, aggressive bacterial pathogens colonize quickly in the body and can result in rapid and detrimental clinical deterioration. Left with no real clinical alternative, physicians are forced to nuke patients with broad spectrum antibiotics which basically kill anything under the sun, harmful and beneficial bacteria alike. The adverse effects of broad spectrum antibiotics are far-reaching from organ damage to antibiotic resistance which has been declared by the World Health Organization as “one of the biggest threats to global health today”[1]. The CDC has declared AR as one of the biggest public health challenges of our time with at least 2M developing AR infections in the US alone and 23K dying from it each year [2] and as such has allocated nearly $500M since 2016 to initiatives set to combat AR [3].
DZD is Changing All That
What do you get when you put 5 Harvard / MIT alums with clinical, computational and business expertise together? Mind blowing creativity and problem solving. This founding team is truly unique in that each individual brings in-depth knowledge from a specific discipline and together 1+1 > 2!! (much, much greater). DZD’s game changing approach will transform and modernize how infectious disease is diagnosed and treated. DZD employs next generation sequencing (NGS) and utilizing its Keynome™ algorithm matches the captured genomic data with its MicrohmDB™, one of the largest databases in the world containing whole genome sequences of pathogens along with their antibiotic resistance profiles. DZD’s solution accurately identifies specific resistance and generates precise treatment recommendations in hours rather than days. In essence, DZD has innovated a way to bypass the wait time on sample culturing and begin to tackle what the CDC has estimated as a $55B economic burden [4] in direct and indirect healthcare costs resulting from antimicrobial resistance.
Looking Forward
I began writing this piece on my way back from our first board meeting as new investors in DZD. We are excited to join this stellar group and support them as they set ambitious objectives to completely transform a tired process in healthcare which is in great need of novel solutions. When I think about the types of opportunities which Triventures seeks to invest in, it is disruptive approaches such as DZD that will use the plethora of data amassed in healthcare and channel it to drive improved outcomes and impact healthcare economics. DZD we look forward to what the future holds and are excited to welcome you to our family!
About Triventures
Triventures is a venture capital fund that invests in transformational health, from life sciences to lifestyle. The fund focuses on disruptive data driven solutions that implement AI, machine and deep learning to impact the quality, cost and experience of healthcare. To date, Triventures has invested in ventures in personalized medicine, cyber security for healthcare, disease management and adherence, e-commerce health services as well as in device companies in fields such as cardiovascular, orthopedics, colorectal surgery and ophthalmology. The fund is strategically located in Tel Aviv and Silicon Valley, the top geographical clusters of innovation in the world and has strong partnerships with healthcare industry leaders, providers and consumer electronics companies which enable it to contribute significant value to its portfolio companies when commercially integrating into markets. Among Triventures’ notable strategic investors are Medtronic, Abbott, Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson, Cardinal Health and Intermountain Healthcare.
[1] https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antibiotic-resistance
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/biggest_threats.html
[3] https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/solutions-initiative/index.html
[4] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2013/p0916-untreatable.html
