June 2023 Business Update
Ben Casavant, PhD
CEO & Co-Founder, Tasso, Inc.
Tasso has continued to experience tremendous growth in 2023, fueled by new and expanded partnerships and increased demand for our patient-centric blood collection solutions. With our focus on expanding access to care for more patient populations, accelerating convenient at-home healthcare options and paving the way for a pivotal shift toward decentralized clinical trials, we continued to expand our capabilities and footprint, solidify partnerships and gain market traction.
Notably, we recently announced new collaborations with Aptar Digital Health, CardioRenal and United BioSource LLC (UBC) to support decentralized blood collection for research and real-world evidence generation. Our collaborations with these key partners are critical to our momentum and growth within the pharmaceutical and healthcare landscape. They share our mission of providing patient friendly health data services that improve patient retention and compliance and boost patient engagement, with the ultimate goal of bringing diagnostic testing to the home to improve patient experience and health.
2023 Business Highlights:
We received our Medical Device Single Audit Program (MDSAP) certification, confirming our compliance with the standards and regulatory requirements of Australia, Canada and the United States. This was a critical step forward in offering our blood collection solutions for decentralized clinical trials and home diagnostic testing to additional global markets. The certification also will streamline the process of reaching other markets covered under the MDSAP, including Brazil and Japan.
Our most recent partnership is with UBC, a leading provider of evidence development solutions for the biopharmaceutical industry. Through the partnership, we will collaborate on efficient, streamlined, and convenient sample collection and analysis solutions for post-approval research. Tasso and UBC have already been awarded a late-stage biomarker monitoring study, with additional projects in the funnel.
We entered into a collaboration with Aptar Digital Health earlier this month that will offer access to Tasso’s devices for blood collection to Aptar Digital Health end-users. The alliance accelerates a decentralized approach to blood collection and will reduce patient burden related to laboratory testing. Tasso blood collection devices will be available to patients who participate in Aptar Digital Health randomized-clinical trials and real-world studies, as well as to life science companies with whom Aptar Digital Health partners to develop digital health solutions, such as digital therapeutics, disease management platforms and digital patient support programs.
Our new partner, CardioRenal, a pioneer in the remote treatment of patients with severe chronic kidney disease (CKD), obtained Breakthrough Device Designation from the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its TENOR device in May. TENOR is a connected medical device to assist patients with chronic illnesses, including CKD, in measuring their blood potassium levels at home. Through our partnership, patients will collect blood for potassium analysis at home using Tasso+, a convenient, easy-to-use, virtually pain-free blood collection device. The partnership will allow us to demonstrate how our blood collection device can be used in combination with the TENOR system to remotely access data for CKD.