LACS welcomes a new member: Inflammatix. Much of Inflammatix’s scientific work is carried out in the San Francisco Bay. Now, the company also has a laboratory and private office in Lisbon, at LACS Conde d’Óbidos.
Inflammatix’s work essentially consists of developing a “medical diagnosis based on the logic of measuring the response of the immune system”, as the CTO, João Fonseca, tells us. In addition, the company embraces the concept of personalized medicine that takes into account the specificities of the organism of each human being as it manages to “measure each person’s immune response and thus have a more adjusted treatment”, adds João Fonseca.
One of the main goals is to prevent the number of cases of septicemia, a widespread infection that can be fatal and is quite common in hospitals. “Before COVID-19, one in five people who died in hospitals ended up dying from septicemia”, explains João Fonseca, who also explains what constitutes one of Inflammatix’s most important innovations: InSep. “It is a test that allows for an early diagnosis of the risk of generalized infection. The test gives a level of risk of viral infection, risk of bacterial infection and severity of infection several days before any other current test”. In short, it can be said that “this test will help to save lives with the early diagnosis of patients at higher risk”.
Out of the line of prevention and moving on to treatment, Inflammatix’s CTO talks about another of the highlighted solutions designed by the company: the ViraBac test. This “allows you to more accurately understand if a person has a viral or bacterial infection. It’s like a better version of other tests like CRP [another in vitro diagnostic test], helping the doctor to decide whether or not to give antibiotics” to the patient.
Regarding the panorama of research and development of health solutions, João Fonseca has little doubt that the world may change in the coming years, largely due to the vaccines recently developed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the CTO of Inflammatix – who also wants to work in the field of oncology – “these COVID-19 vaccine solutions are excellent news in the fight against cancer, because they were all the result of research and development programs for personalized vaccines in oncology”.
Recently, the company closed an investment round of more than 100 million euros, in “American venture capital, Silicon Valley“, an amount that went “far beyond expectations” (its responsible planned to get a much smaller amount in this round), but, according to the CTO, “the project and the team are so interesting” that the value ended up surpassing the most optimistic forecasts.
The challenge of guaranteeing investment is undoubtedly important, but João Fonseca believes that keeping everyone involved with the necessary resilience throughout the process of creating and developing a company is also a very difficult task. “When you envision making a product, from vision to realization, there are many flaws,” he explains. “There are many experiences that don’t go well on a daily basis. There are more times when things don’t go as we’d like, than when they do”, adds the company’s CTO.
To the question “If the history of Inflammatix were a movie, what would it be?”, João Fonseca replied that the company “doesn’t have a movie yet, but it’s coming soon and it will certainly be a major Hollywood production”. However, Inflammatix’s CTO knows which film mirrors Biosurfit’s path: The Pursuit of Happyness. This other company, also linked to cutting-edge technology in the healthcare area, and of which João Fonseca is Chairman, has had a path very similar to the main character of this film, in terms of “doubts, achievements and a path to fulfilling a dream”.
