Making invisible micronutrient deficiency visible.

Helio

bridging the micronutrient data gap through a low-cost biosensor for population assessment of vitamin B12

Problem

16 million suffer from severe B12 deficiency in Nigeria, an invisible problem. Nonprofits struggle to find places most in need of intervention programs + how they should maximize their efficiencies. Thus, 80% of them are not receiving treatment.

Status Quo

Population data should be collected every 5 years so NGOs can find where to establish intervention programs. However, in Nigeria this data is only being collected every 20 years due to high costs ($10M) and the lengthy process (+5 years) to collect data.

Our Solution

A low-cost biosensor that can assess vitamin B12 for under $5 per assay at the point of care. In cutting the need to ship samples overseas to first-world labs, and the million dollar cold-supply chains, and use of expensive lab equipment, this will decrease costs by 40x and time by several years

Our technology

“Ideally, we want the cost of data to be under $5 per assay. At the moment for B12 it’s over $20 and can go up to $60 USD per test in some countries. ” - Dr. Maria Jefferds, CDC


“To me this biosensor would be a dream!” Lisa Rogers, WHO

Low-cost

Hand-held sensor costing under $5 per assay

Point-of-care

Generating results on the site anytime anywhere

Fully automated

Providing quantitative readouts of B12 status with minimal worker training required

Easily manufacturable

Integrating gold-standard glucose sensing and widely available off-the-shelf glucometer technology.