Shoppers Drug Mart has struck a commercial partnership with Truvian Health, a San Diego-based startup that is seeking regulatory approval for its printer-sized devices to conduct on-the-spot blood tests without the need to go to a lab.
Loblaw Cos. Ltd., L-T which owns Canada’s largest drugstore chain, and Truvian announced the partnership Wednesday. For Shoppers to consider offering blood testing in its pharmacies or clinics, Truvian’s devices would first need to secure Health Canada approval – an important hurdle still to clear – and would also have to be integrated into the funding scheme for blood testing in each provincial jurisdiction.
Shoppers has been expanding the health services it offers in its pharmacies – including vaccinations for travellers, and consultations on a variety of conditions such as rashes and pink eye – particularly as pharmacists’ “scope of care” has expanded in some provinces. The opportunity for the chain to offer more services, including possibly blood testing, is something executives are watching closely.
“The Truvian technology is quite promising,” Shoppers Drug Mart president Jeff Leger said in a recent interview with The Globe and Mail, adding that in many provinces, pharmacists can already order blood tests.
“They have to go then to a lab to get the tests, and then come back and get the results, and go through it. But if in this scenario, you could do it immediately … it’s really quite interesting.”
Loblaw and Truvian would not go into detail on the nature of the partnership, saying more information will come later. But the companies have already had a working relationship: Late last year, Truvian executives conducted a demonstration of the blood-testing technology at the Shoppers head offices in Toronto, comparing the test results from its machines with results generated through a lab.
Loblaw’s controlling shareholders, the Weston family, are also investors in Truvian, through Wittington Ventures, the venture-capital unit of their holding company, Wittington Investments. Wittington partner Megh Gupta sits on the company’s board. On Wednesday, Truvian also announced a $74-million financing round led by Wittington Ventures and San Francisco-based Great Point Ventures. Truvian’s last round of financing, also co-led by Wittington, was in 2021.
Truvian will use some of that capital to seek approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which will require clinical trials. At the same time, Truvian will be seeking approval from Health Canada as well, a process that chief executive officer Jay Srinivasan hopes will be complete some time next year. According to the company, the technology has already been tested on samples from 5,000 donors.
“Our goal is to get it in the hands of people sooner, in terms of doing pilots and so on – but really not actively commercialized until we have checked all the boxes for regulatory approval,” Mr. Srinivasan said in an interview.
If it secures that approval, Truvian’s plan is to launch in clinics, doctor’s offices and pharmacies with a nurse or phlebotomist who can draw the blood to put it through Truvian’s testing device. The company is also evaluating capillary blood collection devices that could test very small volumes of blood – such as based on a finger prick – and could remove the need to have trained staff to draw the samples.
Truvian is also grappling with the spectre of Theranos Inc., the last company to claim the ability to revolutionize blood testing. Mr. Srinivasan said Truvian has been sharing testing data on its website, conducting demonstrations such as the one at the Shoppers offices last year and communicating with regulators, all with the goal to show its technology is legitimate.
“We’ll continue to do those clinical studies to build that trust around the data,” he said.