1.23.24-Japan-DxLab

HO-JUN-SUK: Hello. Thank you for that introduction, Ariadna. And my name is Ho-Jun Suk. I received my PhD from MIT in 2019 in medical engineering and medical physics. And I'm also the co-founder and CEO of a company called DxLab, where we're focused on bringing rapid, accurate, and versatile diagnostic testing everywhere.

My co-founders and I started DxLab to address infectious diseases which have become a global challenge, threatening everyone's health. But some may ask, why are infectious diseases a global challenge? That's because due to a significantly increased global connectivity, infectious diseases can travel fast and far, capable of being transported between any two points in the world in less than 1.5 days.

The number of infectious disease outbreaks has been also rising worldwide over the last several decades with more varied causes. And also, 1 in 7 deaths are caused by infectious diseases worldwide, making them one of the leading causes of death.

I actually want to draw your attention to the death rate from infectious diseases in Asia. And as you can see here in the map, Japan actually has one of the highest death rates from infectious diseases. And also over the last three decades, the death rate from infectious diseases has been steadily rising in Japan. So infectious diseases are threatening both Japan and the entire world. So they need to be addressed right away.

Diagnostic testing is a powerful tool for our fight against infectious diseases. And that's because the information that we can get from diagnostic testing can be used to provide improved treatment effectiveness, reduced infection transmission, as well as better antibiotics use, all of which combine to provide enhanced disease outcomes, as well as better outbreak control for public health.

Unfortunately, currently available diagnostic methods have clear limitations. For example, we have these rapid antigen tests that are very compact and fast. But also they are very inaccurate and single-plex, meaning they can only test one sample for one disease at a time. On the other end of the spectrum, we have these lab-based PCR tests, which are much more accurate than rapid antigen tests and multiplex capable. But they are very bulky and much slower than rapid antigen tests.

That's why at DxLab, we came up with a new technology that combines the best of both worlds. To do this, we utilize a robust method called loop-mediated isothermal amplification, or LAMP, which was originally developed right here in Japan. And we utilize LAMP to amplify our target DNA exponentially to achieve very accurate target detection. And we have designed our LAMP chemistry to complete all the entire process in 10 to 30 minutes to be able to provide rapid fast results.

But to be able to bring this LAMP technique outside of the laboratory and bring rapid and accurate diagnostic testing everywhere, we have also developed a new point-of-care multiplex testing platform that we call the DxHub. We focused on keeping the DxHub very compact for maximum portability. And also we've added what we call the random access reaction chambers to provide highly flexible multiplex testing. And I want to highlight that we have been able to achieve FDA authorization for this system for use at the point of care.

DxLab's scalable technology enables rapid expansion of the use cases for the DxHub, specifically utilizing our patent-pending DNA and RNA detection technology. The DxHub can serve as a universal diagnostic testing platform for various human diagnostic testing applications, such as respiratory infections and sexually transmitted infections. But also we can utilize the hub for non-human testing applications, like environmental monitoring, food and water safety testing, and animal testing, just to name a few.

So this allows us to achieve very rapid and streamlined development and deployment of new products on the DxHub platform, which ultimately allows us to provide a prototype for any DNA and RNA detection in as little as three months. We're currently focusing on the respiratory infections and sexually transmitted infections as our beachhead targets, but also are actively looking at other use cases for the DxHub.

Our initial target customers are health care facilities requiring fast, accurate, and versatile diagnostic testing. And these include anyone from urgent cares, to pediatric practices, to emergency rooms. And our value proposition for these target customers is that the DxHub is a point-of-care diagnostic solution offering rapid and accurate testing for a wide range of diseases to improve patient care and experience at low cost with less work.

This is how we compare with some of the other options that are currently available. But the DxHub is the only solution that combines the compact form factor, rapid speed, network connectivity, and on-demand multi-test processing, making it a unique solution that offers all of the necessary features for bringing rapid, accurate, and versatile diagnostic testing everywhere.

To see the potential impact of the DxHub in the real world, we ran a case study at urgent cares and emergency rooms located across Massachusetts in the US. And we tested more than 450 patients to show that we can reduce the time to result from 12 to 24 hours to 10 to 25 minutes for COVID testing, while achieving better than 97% overall accuracy compared to lab-based PCR testing.

We're very eager to look for different strategic partners right here in Japan who are interested in working with us to develop new products for different applications of the DxHub and go to the market with us together and also different distribution and sales partners for sales in Japan and the US, as well as other countries, and help us achieve the target customers that we already have some ongoing conversations with. So if you're interested, please find me in the exhibit hall. And have the toaster-sized device with me, so please come and play with the device if you're interested. Thank you. [JAPANESE]