Mount Sinai Spinout OOVA, Inc. Partners with Thorne Research to Bring Fertility Mapping Tool to the Home
Diagnostic device company OOVA, Inc., a Mount Sinai Health System spinout, is piloting a fertility monitoring tool through a partnership with Thorne Research. The partnership will make OOVA’s innovative product available to more than 3 million potential customers and 35,000 clinicians through bundled sales with Thorne supplements.
OOVA’s technology offers a novel approach for women to measure and monitor the concentration of luteinizing hormone and progesterone, two key fertility markers.
“In a precise and meaningful way, women can acquire and monitor results in real time. They will have access to personalized reproductive health data,” said Jerome Scelza, Co-Founder and CTO of OOVA.
The at-home, consumer-friendly diagnostic tool merges biotechnology with machine learning in a simple two-part process: 1) The amounts of key hormones present in a urine sample are measured through a paper-based test strip embedded with innovative biochemistry. 2) Through artificial intelligence, the test strip is scanned and interpreted using the camera of a smartphone. By collecting reliable and accurate data, OOVA will track daily hormone levels to predict peak fertility, monitor changes over time, and provide goal-based recommendations.
“[OOVA] is empowering patients to take control over their own fertility. This product combines technological innovation and human behavior to meet an unmet demand in the market,” said Alan Copperman, MD, Director, Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, and Vice Chair of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science at the Mount Sinai Health System. “The technology is a sophisticated, direct-to-consumer test with widespread partnership opportunity and potential for impact.”
The company’s technology also serves as a prognostic tool for fertility issues and polycystic ovary syndrome, as well as a detection tool for cycle management, post-pregnancy menstrual assessment, and pre-menopause.
“This is one of the first products in the field of personalized, precision women’s health,” said Joel Dudley, PhD, Director, Mount Sinai Institute for Next Generation Healthcare and Vice President for Precision Health at Mount Sinai Health System. “While the platform started in fertility, the core technology can be applied in many different areas.”
The OOVA team is made up of colleagues from the Institute for Next Generation Healthcare (INGH) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Led by Dr. Dudley, this environment fosters interdisciplinary research between career biologists, data scientists and engineers to stimulate ideas like the technology behind this product. OOVA expects to launch in the third quarter of this year, with Dr. Dudley as the company’s Chief Scientific Advisor.
“Our main mission is to help women and families by creating a brand of trust,” said Aparna (Amy) Divaraniya, PhD, Co-Founder and CEO. “Women’s bodies shouldn’t be a black box. Our technology gives women the means to take control of their health.”
About OOVA, Inc.
OOVA is a fertility diagnostic company that spun out from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Using innovative biochemistry and artificial intelligence, OOVA learns a woman’s fertility profile by accurately measuring key hormones through daily urine samples. By monitoring this critical balance of hormones, OOVA can help a woman get pregnant, identify reasons she is having trouble getting pregnant, and even expose reproductive health issues including polycystic ovarian syndrome, all with the accuracy of a clinic in the comfort of her own home.
About Mount Sinai Institute for Next Generation Healthcare
The Mount Sinai Institute for Next Generation Healthcare is a new model of research, innovation and market delivery founded in 2016 to expedite and help shape the impending revolution in healthcare. Our vision of next generation healthcare harnesses cutting edge science, technology and analytics to enhance the health and vitality of people everywhere.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with 48,000 employees working across eight hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, more than 600 research and clinical labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time—discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.
Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 9,000 primary and specialty care physicians and 11 free-standing joint-venture centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida. Hospitals within the System are consistently ranked by Newsweek’s® “The World’s Best Smart Hospitals, Best in State Hospitals, World Best Hospitals and Best Specialty Hospitals” and by U.S. News & World Report's® “Best Hospitals” and “Best Children’s Hospitals.” The Mount Sinai Hospital is on the U.S. News & World Report® “Best Hospitals” Honor Roll for 2024-2025.
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