Health Pitch 03: Lura Health 🚀

🚀 The Startup: Lura Health

Welcome to my 3rd Health Pitch! I’m starting to enjoy doing these more regularly, so I have opted to keep them shorter and snappier (where I can 😂) to get to my new goal of pitching at least one health tech startup a day!

Today, I’m looking at Lura Health, an ambitious health tech startup developing the world’s first continual health monitoring device powered by saliva.

Think of it as a real time health tracker that lives inside your mouth, constantly analyzing biomarkers and sending crucial data to your doctor. This feels like a highly unusual game-changer in preventative medicine, offering a non invasive, user friendly alternative to traditional blood tests and wearable monitors.

💰 Funding: Lura Health has raised approximately $2.5 million to date, with backing from the National Science Foundation and SOSV. This early stage funding signals decent early interest in their technology, but they'll need significantly more capital to navigate regulatory approvals and scale production in the future.

🌍 Market: Saliva Diagnostics Market. But it also touches on the Preventative Healthcare and Diagnostics Industry similar to Neko health

💡 USP: First of its kind wearable saliva sensor providing continuous health monitoring

📈 The Market

Lura Health is playing in a space with enormous potential.

The global saliva diagnostics market alone is projected to hit $1.1 billion by 2030, and if you zoom out to include the broader preventative health industry, you're looking at a multi billion dollar opportunity. At the moment however, the global market is around $800m growing at 4.7% CAGR. So not quite the market for a VC to be in, as it sounds early days.

Over the past few decades, scientists have known the importance of saliva in screening and diagnostics. For example, we’ve been screening HIV using saliva tests for a while. But it wasn’t really until 23andMe’s genetic testing kits, that testing with saliva became mainstream.

There are a few companies offering “Saliva Tests”, such as the DNA & Hormone Tests by Cerascreen and you also may find similar tests on Amazon.

However, saliva as a medium for continual biomarker tracking is still largely untapped, giving Lura Health a potential first-mover advantage.

But despite the startup’s concepts being patented, the product is not yet approved for sale in the US (as mentioned on their website in Feb 2025). And consumer adoption for any new biomonitoring tech always takes time. So Lura Health faces and uphill battle.

🔥 The Problem

Currently, preventative health monitoring is reactive, not proactive. I explored this earlier with Neko Health. And most people get health data after annual preventative health checkups or after symptoms appear.

Blood tests are usually the gold standard for any biomarker analysis, but we know they’re invasive, inconvenient, and infrequent. which often leads to late stage diagnoses and higher treatment costs.

Wearable health tech has made some strides in fixing this, but it can mostly focus on physical metrics like heart rate and step counts.

I believe there is a gap in the market for a deeper level of biochemical insights, but without all the worries that blood tests offer. Is saliva monitoring filling this gap? Potentially.

If it does, it could help with the monitoring of conditions like diabetes, dehydration, electrolyte imbalances, and even stress levels. For patients with these types of chronic conditions, having real time insights into their biochemical health could be life changing. Instead of waiting months for a lab test and results, they could receive instant alerts when something is off, allowing for faster interventions and better disease management.

💡 The Solution

Lura Health is introducing a revolutionary approach: a tiny, wearable saliva sensor that attaches inside the mouth and continuously tracks key health biomarkers. The data is transmitted in real-time to a smartphone or healthcare provider, offering a non-invasive monitoring experience.

For patients, this means fewer needle sticks and more proactive healthcare. For doctors, it means richer, continuous data to make better informed decisions. And for insurers and healthcare systems, it means potential cost savings by catching health issues early.

But is saliva based monitoring just as reliable as traditional blood tests? The science is promising, but not fully there. For example, in the context of hormone assessment, saliva testing has been shown to effectively measure free, bioavailable hormones. Unlike blood tests, which often measure total hormone levels, saliva tests can provide a more accurate representation of the hormones actively available to the body's tissues.

However, compared to blood tests, the concentrations of important biomarkers are significantly lower in saliva tests which means the systems need to be extremely sensitive for accurate monitoring.

💰 The Business Model

Lura Health is likely looking at a mix of business models:

• B2B (Healthcare providers & insurers): Hospitals, clinics, and insurance companies could adopt the technology for monitoring chronic disease progression

• B2C (Direct to consumer): Individuals with chronic conditions (e.g., diabetics, kidney disease patients) could purchase the device and subscribe to a monitoring service.

• Licensing Model: Lura Health could license its saliva sensor technology to other health tech companies looking to integrate it into their own platforms.

If we have a play with some numbers, imagine Lura Health charges £50/month per patient (to the payor) for continuous monitoring of certain biomarkers for diabetes.

In it’s first year, lets assume they onboard 10 healthcare providers and a total of 10,000 patients (there are nearly 5 million people living with diabetes in the UK so this number feels reasonable).

This would lead to a potential revenue of £6m in it’s first year (£50/month × 12 months × 10,000 patients).

Not bad for a start.

💧 The Challenges

Every health tech startup faces obstacles, and Lura Health is no exception.

1. Regulatory Hurdles: FDA and CE approval processes can be slow and expensive for a device that stays inside you at all times.

2. Consumer Trust & Adoption: Convincing patients and doctors that saliva-based tracking is as effective as blood tests could be a challenge. Patients also may not see the need for continuous monitoring, unless they are really unwell.

3. Competitive Threats: Big players in health tech (Apple, Dexcom, Abbott) could enter the space if Lura Health proves there’s demand.

4. Scaling Production: Miniaturizing and mass-producing the technology at a cost effective price point will be difficult. It will also be unpredictable, most companies head to certain parts of the world when it comes to manufacturing their devices and this brings with it supply chain issues.

💪 My Final Take

Overall I believe, Lura Health has a compelling vision and a truly innovative product (if they can prove their tech works as promised).

However, its still an early market and there aren’t many players in the space yet. The biggest hurdles will be regulatory approval, clinical validation, and convincing patients and doctors to adopt a brand new (sort of) form of health tracking.

It’s a moonshot idea, but if it works, it could redefine health monitoring as we know it.