WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — HemaChrome LLC, a digital mobile health startup that has developed Purdue University smartphone technology to measure blood hemoglobin levels, is collaborating with Global Health Labs Inc. (GH Labs).

HemaChrome’s machine learning-based technology utilizes spectroscopy and computational algorithms to transform a smartphone or computer camera into a hyperspectral imager. The technology instantly and noninvasively quantifies and assesses blood hemoglobin content from a digital photo of the inner eyelid, allowing clinicians to conduct point-of-care, home-based and remote diagnostic tests on their patients at a fraction of the cost.

To maximize accuracy, HemaChrome’s technology incorporates a first-of-its-kind patent-pending method that extracts true colors from a digital photo with a level of accuracy that is not currently available on the market.

According to Young Kim, HemaChrome’s founder and chief science officer, “Several factors including smartphone models, light conditions and file formats cause the actual colors to appear differently in a digital photo, so this innovation is a critical aspect of our technology and one of the key reasons GH Labs is collaborating with us — we are a pioneer in machine reading and learning of colors in the health care space.”

Kim developed the technology with the support of his team at Purdue University, where he is a professor in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, a University Faculty Scholar and a Showalter Faculty Scholar.

GH Labs is a nonprofit corporation fully funded by Gates Ventures, the private office of Bill Gates. It partners with the Gates Foundation and other cross-sector leaders to develop health technology solutions for low- and middle-income countries, where many lack access to sufficient health care.

GH Labs will assist in advancing HemaChrome’s algorithms. The research collaboration agreement began in May 2024 and is expected to continue throughout 2025.

Huiri Kim, HemaChrome’s CEO based out of Chicago, said the company is excited to work with GH Labs because of the talented and dedicated team there whose mission aligns with HemaChrome’s.

“GH Labs’ mission is to facilitate innovation to reduce health disparities across the globe,” she said. “HemaChrome’s driving force is to develop technologies that make health care more readily available to the vulnerable and underserved. While our noninvasive and affordable technology will be beneficial for everyone, it will have the most significant impact for underserved populations.”

HemaChrome has received support from Purdue Innovates and licenses technology through the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization. HemaChrome has also received support from the National Institutes of Health as the first-prize winner in NIH’s Technology Accelerator Challenge and a Phase 1 winner of NIH’s RADx Tech for Maternal Health Challenge.

Blood hemoglobin tests to detect anemia

Blood hemoglobin tests are one of the most commonly run blood tests because hemoglobin levels can indicate many adverse health conditions. Yet traditional tests are grossly underperformed because they require expensive equipment and consumables, as well as trained medical professionals to draw blood, process the sample and read the results. An alternative method that is affordable and accessible will transform global health, Huiri Kim said.

For example, Huiri Kim said anemia affects 1.93 billon people globally, accounting for a quarter of the world’s population and ranking as the third-leading case of disabilities worldwide, making it a global health crisis. She said although in most cases anemia is easy to prevent and treat, the numbers are rapidly rising in large part due to a lack of affordable and accessible testing.

“Many people, especially those in low-resource settings, don’t have the resources to be tested for anemia, so they don’t realize they’re anemic and never get treated,” she said.

Young Kim added that anemia indicates the presence of many different pandemics, ongoing diseases and other adverse health conditions, making it critical to quickly diagnose anemia.

“These include sickle cell disease, kidney disease, inflammatory disease, heart failure, gastrointestinal disorders, postoperative complications, autoimmune disorders, malaria, hemorrhages and so many more,” he said. “So it’s important to have an affordable and accessible diagnostic solution.”

In addition to health concerns, governments have a financial incentive to address anemia according to Huiri Kim, because individuals with anemia feel weak and are less productive, drastically impacting a country’s gross domestic product.

GH Labs is supporting an initiative to tackle anemia diagnosis gaps by vetting various new technologies.

The next steps

With GH Labs’ support, HemaChrome is targeting to have a minimally viable product in late 2025.

“We hope that after our current collaboration with GH Labs is completed, we can continue to partner with them on related projects, including our color calibration technology, which we believe will transform the digital health care space,” Huiri Kim said.

About HemaChrome

HemaChrome LLC is a Purdue University startup that has developed an innovative mobile health solution that makes blood hemoglobin testing accessible and affordable for nearly everyone by simply utilizing what most people already own — a smartphone. Users can instantly and noninvasively measure blood hemoglobin levels by taking a picture or screenshot of the lower inner eyelid, making reliable and affordable blood hemoglobin testing immediately available at the point of care and beyond.

About Global Health Labs Inc.

Global Health Labs Inc. (GH Labs) is a nonprofit organization funded by Gates Ventures as an independent partner to support the Gates Foundation strategies. GH Labs strives toward improving primary health care at scale to address the needs of underserved communities.

About Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization

The Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization operates one of the most comprehensive technology transfer programs among leading research universities in the U.S. Services provided by this office support the economic development initiatives of Purdue University and benefit the university’s academic activities through commercializing, licensing and protecting Purdue intellectual property. In fiscal year 2024, the office reported 145 deals finalized with 224 technologies signed, 466 invention disclosures received, and 290 U.S. and international patents received. The office is managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. Contact otcip@prf.org for more information.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research institution demonstrating excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top four in the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 students study at Purdue across modalities and locations, including nearly 50,000 in person on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 13 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its first comprehensive urban campus in Indianapolis, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.

Media contact: Steve Martin, sgmartin@prf.org