Since the pandemic, customers expect almost everything to be delivered to their doorstep. Irvine-based Innovative Health Diagnostics is working to meet that demand, for medical testing products.
The CLIA-FDA accredited lab began as a fertility testing facility in 2011. Since then, it has developed a suite of over 60 at-home testing kits for various conditions from autoimmune and cardiovascular diseases to diabetes and infectious diseases. About 80% of those tests are proprietary, according to Innovative Health Diagnostics’ CEO David White.
The pandemic presented an opportunity for the company to expand. Since 2020, it has ramped up distribution of its PCR tests to several prominent businesses, such as Edwards Lifesciences Corp. (Nasdaq: EW) in Irvine and Amazon Studios in Hollywood.
In the first year of the pandemic, its business grew tenfold, the company said. The privately held firm doesn’t disclose revenue.
“It’s been an amazing journey, helping to keep these businesses running,” White told the Business Journal. “We saw the pandemic as another opportunity to serve and live our mission of expanding access to community care.”
Coast to Coast
White, a 20-year healthcare industry veteran, co-founded Innovative Health Diagnostics with his sister Michelle White and epidemiologist Alex Nguyen, who now serves as chief operating officer.
The company then brought on former McKinsey & Company Managing Partner Rajit Malhotra as chairman and molecular biologist Dr. Mina Kalantari as chief scientific officer.
The company counts 150 employees and is based out of an 11,000-square-foot lab and office on McGaw Avenue that serves up to 250 clients daily.
Most of the firm’s growth has been bootstrapped, save for a $3 million friends and family funding round.
Last September, the company opened a 4,000-square-foot lab in Brooklyn, N.Y., to solve “big problems in the industry of care,” White said at the time.
The company isn’t done growing, with plans to acquire two clinical labs in Orange County and Los Angeles before expanding to the Pacific Northwest and Southeast Florida.
“We want to cover coast to coast,” White said, adding the company will remain based in Irvine due to the area’s strength as a biotech community.
VC Fund, Telehealth
In 2021, Innovative Health Diagnostics launched its own venture fund, IHD Ventures, to invest in seed and pre-seed healthcare companies.
That fund, which now counts five portfolio companies, recently invested in Truentity Health, a medication reconciliation app.
“We bootstrapped for many years, so we understand the need to expand and operationalize on great ideas,” White said. “We’re very interested in collaborating and supporting our fellow founders in the community.”
Also in the works: a targeted focus on virtual healthcare, specifically through a new smartphone app.
“There’s a tremendous push to bring healthcare to the patient with them never leaving the house,” White said. “That’s what we’re trying to solve.”
