HemoLink Blood Collection Device
In the July 19th blog, I discussed Iggbo, which is a company that is trying to revolutionize blood collection by applying an Uber-like model to connect a workforce of independent phlebotomists with patients who have physician orders for clinical laboratory tests. This week I would like to discuss another potentially disruptive innovation in phlebotomy.
HemoLink is a disposable, needleless blood-collection device developed by a research team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A medical startup company called Tasso Inc. in Madison, Wisconsin has been formed to commercialize this device.
HemoLink is a golf ball sized device that is placed against an arm or the abdomen for 2 minutes. Microfluidics create a slight vacuum that pulls blood from capillaries through tiny channels in the skin and into a small tube. The device collects 150 uL of blood.
Tasso plans to market the device to patients who regularly need to have blood drawn to monitor chronic disease or treatment. Patients will be able to draw their own blood sample and send it to a clinical laboratory.
The HemoLink device is inexpensive to manufacture and Tasso hopes to have the device available to consumers in 2016. That might, however, depend on whether the Tasso scientists can develop a method to ensure blood sample stability.
Photos of the device can be viewed in a Gizmag report.
