Startups, Diagnostics

Startup EverlyWell launches three at-home diagnostic tests

An Austin, Texas-based startup is hoping to capitalize on a gap in the home lab test market by offering three new diagnostic tests, each for less than $100.

everlywell-results

An Austin, Texas-based startup is hoping to capitalize on a gap in the home lab test market by offering three new diagnostic tests, each for less than $100. EverlyWell this week introduced at-home tests for cardiovascular health, metabolism and for thyroid and chronic inflammation.

EverlyWell, which launched operations in April, is targeting women as its primary customer audience, according to Founder and CEO Julia Taylor Cheek. Cheek said several of the products are designed to help women understand their hormone levels and bio-markers. She also noted that 80 percent of family healthcare decisions are made by women.

Down the road, there will be many opportunities for what Cheek called “subscription-based testing” for people with thyroid and cardiovascular conditions who require regular monitoring and testing.

“Eventually, we hope to expand into other areas, for example, like STD (sexually transmitted diseases) testing,” she predicted. “But for now, we are targeting the consumers who want access to their own test results.”

She said EverlyWell, which currently operates in 46 states, has contracted with a network of physicians to comply with some state laws requiring physician prescriptions for lab tests. “We’ve changed the testing process so that consumers can order tests themselves, but we submit those requests through a board certified physician who authorizes the tests. And on the back end, a physician reviews the results before we send them to the consumer,” Cheek said.

“We also inform consumers of ‘critical values’ — abnormal or problematic test results — so they are aware and can take the next step to follow up with a physician.”

She pointed out that clinical laboratories EverlyWell uses are regulated by the federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments program, which sets standards to ensure the accuracy and reliability of lab test results. That’s a requirement wounded unicorn Theranos worked around, with a waiver from the Food and Drug Administration.

Cheek said that all labs that EverlyWell contracts with are CLIA-certified and accredited and the test components the company sends consumers to collect blood and saliva are commonly used in the medical industry.

“We’ve taken fully certified labs and created a new distribution center for them,” she explained.

She said individual consumers ordering the tests pay EverlyWell directly as out-of-pocket expenses.

Cheek said it’s been her mission to empower consumers to create their own preventive care program by monitoring their own testing. “Our goal is to focus on the prevention market and offer tests so consumers can reduce the likelihood of chronic illness occurring years later.”

She said the home test lab has received surprisingly warm reviews from physicians. According to Cheek, a former vice president with the financial services firm, MoneyGram International:

We’ve seen a tidal wave shift in healthcare,” Cheek said. “People are taking more and more control over their health. A higher percentage of people than you think are never contacted with abnormal test results. Many people frustrated by the failure of their physicians to respond with their test results. As docs continue to be overburdened, we think it is helpful to offload those test results to consumers directly in ways that they understand. It’s your body and you have the right to that information.

In addition to the cardiovascular, metabolism and thyroid and chronic inflammation tests, EverlyWell offers tests to measure food sensitivity, women’s fertility and hormones and heavy metals and minerals. Most of these employ dried blood spot, urine and saliva testing samples, which are collected at-home and returned to an EverlyWell lab. Test results are delivered online days after samples are received, Cheek said.

Photo: EverlyWell

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