iXensor receives investment from Rohto for digital health platform expansion

iXensor announced that Rohto Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, a multinational pharmaceutical corporation in Japan, has become its strategic partner and shareholder, to expand its mobile health business globally and accelerate its PixoTech platform licensing.

Building on this strategic partnership, Rohto Pharmaceutical will deploy iXensor's patented PixoTech technology to digitise its new products through a separate technology licensing and joint development agreement, thereby providing Rohto Pharmaceutical's consumers with innovative self-testing portfolios including women's health and infectious diseases in Japan market.

iXensor's first product, PixoTest Glucose Monitoring System, developed based on its PixoTech platform, is a US FDA-approved smartphone camera-based blood test dated in 2017. The PixoTech, currently protected by more than 70 international patents, is iXensor's core technology platform that transforms smartphones into in vitro diagnostic instruments for biomedical analysis in point-of-care testing and self-testing. PixoTech controls smartphones' camera sensing modules and screen lighting emissions with multiple wavelengths to analyse all types of immunoassay and enzymatic tests through the proprietary algorithm.

Mr. Hidetoshi Segi, chief strategy officer of Rohto Pharmaceutical, commented: "By investing in iXensor, we can deepen our joint efforts on a series of new product developments, thus expanding our testing and diagnostic business through a wave of digital transformation. As the first step, we will receive a technical license for smartphone-based diagnostic devices and apps from iXensor to develop and sell innovative self-testing products."

Dr. Carson Chen, CEO of iXensor, expressed: "This partnership represents the unlimited potential and technical advantage of the PixoTech platform to transform smartphones into precision medical diagnostic devices. The licensing business of PixoTech technology started shifting in as the new engine to drive iXensor's growth."

In the post-pandemic era, iXensor endeavours to accelerate the growth of the at-home self-testing market and empower the evolution of the digital health ecosystem through licensing the PixoTech technology. Thanks to that, PixoTech can be flexibly applied to the digitalisation of various lateral flow tests. In addition, it can shorten the lead time for IVD manufacturers venturing into the digital health business. It can also be applied to develop companion diagnostic or remote monitoring tools for pharmaceuticals to prove the efficacy of new classes of medications with actual test results collected from patients' smartphones with comfort at home.