Q&A: The smartphone blood test offering rapid COVID-19 screening

Med-Tech Innovation News caught up with healthtech entrepreneur Steve Roest, CEO and co-founder of PocDoc to discuss the company’s smartphone blood tests and recent backing by the DigitalHealth.London accelerator. 

First of all, tell us where the idea to develop PocDoc came from?

The business was co-founded by Kiran and Steve Roest. When Kiran’s dad was complaining about not being able to get a cholesterol test at his GP, Kiran thought why couldn’t simple blood tests be done using a smartphone or tablet? 

What’s needed to make your product/service work?

PocDoc includes proprietary blood test assays with a smartphone/tablet app – all you need is the test and the app on your device.

How do you take a blood test via a smartphone? What other equipment or technology is needed besides the phone to make things work?

Kiran and Steve started from the perspective of wanting no additional equipment, no additional “reader” or bulky clip-on devices – just the test and the smartphone. The user pricks their finger, adds a droplet of blood onto the test. The test takes five minutes to run, during which time the user opens the app, fills in a health questionnaire, then uses the app to snap a photo of the test after five minutes. Our proprietary software automatically detects minute colour changes for each marker being tested and calibrates that back to the result for each marker. The results and a full health assessment are then immediately available in the app and online – this information can be transmitted securely back into patient records when we collaborate with healthcare organisations.  

Was the transition to offering rapid COVID-19 testing an easy one given the technology you had in place?

Our service was up and running long before the pandemic hit, and we were easily able to adapt our PocDoc platform and service to facilitate rapid COVID-19 testing. We had significant support from Innovate UK, who have awarded us twice for our work in adapting PocDoc to provide and scale an end-to-end COVID-19 rapid testing solution. 

Your main target market is to work within the NHS, but are you targeting other settings other than healthcare?

Our vision with PocDoc is to allow anyone with a smartphone to test themselves for a range of major diseases in order to help them live healthier lives. 

Being part of the NHS Digital Accelerator demonstrates the value of digitally-enabled, smartphone-based testing for a range of chronic conditions e.g. Cardiovascular Disease and Type 2 Diabetes. Our expansion into COVID-19 testing has seen us screen thousands of people across the UK, either in workplaces or through our own network of dedicated clinics. We are able to provide the tests, digital platform and staff to bring rapid testing to communities across the UK. 

We’re also in conversation with a number of NGOs to use PocDoc to scale rapid testing for certain infectious diseases in low resourced countries in order to prevent many thousands of deaths per year.  

How do you aim to develop the product further?

We will continue to scale the PocDoc platform by adding additional proprietary tests focussed on other major diseases and chronic conditions. We will also continue to expand PocDoc’s role in scaling rapid testing through partnerships with manufacturers, NGOs and other healthcare organisations, as we have done very successfully with COVID-19. 

By creating PocDoc as a digital platform, that can integrate our own tests, but also any existing rapid test, our ability to scale quickly and address major healthcare issues at global scale is significant. 

We are already in discussions with potential partners in the US and major European countries. 

How do you think the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the landscape when it comes to current health technologies like yours?

COVID-19 has accelerated the requirement for innovative healthtech of all kinds and specifically regarding PocDoc, with our ability to offer digitally integrated, cost effective point-of-care testing for major diseases, the issues we solve for healthcare providers have been exacerbated and made more urgent by COVID-19. 

Anything else you’d like to add?

We’re honoured to have been identified as part of the Digital Health London Accelerator as “HealthTech set to transform the NHS”.

We’re just about to launch a weekly radio show on UK Health Radio called the HealthTech Hour, in which Steve will interview key experts in the heathtech industry.

Kiran Roest has also just won Innovator of the Year in the Women in Tech Excellence awards recognising Kiran as a top-performing woman from across the technology space and providing inspiration for younger women looking to build a career in our industry.