Startup Spotlight: Lura Health

How Lura Health is revolutionizing health monitoring with non-invasive, saliva-based wearables.

Lura Health is pioneering a new era of chronic disease monitoring with medical-grade, non-invasive wearables, which monitor biomarkers in saliva instead of blood. Through their salivary sensing platform, Lura Health provides a non-invasive, pain-free alternative to traditional blood or ISF (interstitial fluid)-based wearables, offering patients a discrete and continuous way to monitor their health. Their unique solution is poised to redefine how we track biomarkers and manage chronic diseases by integrating seamlessly into dental devices patients already wear, or bonded to a tooth as a bracket.

Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

The Startup

Lura Health addresses a critical need in the wearable health-tech market: accurate, non-invasive monitoring of chronic diseases. While wrist and skin-based wearables are convenient, they are limited to measuring macro-trends like heart rate and temperature. More invasive wearables, such as blood and ISF-based sensors, may be medically accurate but are often cumbersome and visible. Lura Health’s approach is different. The startup is developing medical-grade wearables that monitor biomarkers in saliva rather than blood, making the process less invasive and easier for patients.

As Daniel Weinstein, CEO and co-founder of Lura Health, explains, “Patients need easier and less invasive wearables to monitor chronic disease. Wrist and skin-based wearables are convenient to wear but their medical accuracy is questionable for biomarker detection beyond macro-trends like temperature and heart rate. Blood and ISF-based wearables are invasive and can be highly visible. Lura Health is developing medical-grade, non-invasive wearables, which monitor biomarkers in saliva instead of blood.”

The Challenge

Wearables have become a popular tool for monitoring health metrics, but most devices on the market today fall short when it comes to chronic disease management. Many patients require more precise data than what current devices can provide. Lura Health’s solution is revolutionary because it uses saliva, an underutilized but promising bodily fluid, to track health biomarkers continuously. This breakthrough enables long-term, precise monitoring without the need for invasive wearables.

The Story

Lura Health was born from a collaboration between its co-founders at Tufts University. Weinstein, along with co-founders Saam Bozorg, DMD, and Noah Hill, met during an entrepreneurial hackathon. “I was a biomedical engineer studying electrochemical sensing, Saam was in dental school and Noah was studying computer science,” Weinstein recalls. With saliva gaining traction as a viable alternative to blood for health monitoring, the team realized the need for a continuous, non-invasive solution. They quickly gained recognition, winning several prizes at Tufts, including the Montle and Ricci prizes, and were finalists in the university’s $100k New Ventures Competition.

Despite having opportunities to attend graduate programs at prestigious institutions, Weinstein chose to dedicate himself full-time to Lura Health. “I rejected all graduate programs, including Cornell, Columbia, Michigan and UC Berkeley, to work full-time on the venture after graduation,” says Weinstein. Since then, the company has raised nearly $5 million in funding from the National Science Foundation, state grants and venture capital and has participated in top-tier accelerators like MassChallenge, SMILE Health and SOSV’s HAX.

The Solution

Lura Health’s wearable salivary sensing platform offers a seamless, non-invasive way to monitor health. This solution is especially valuable for chronic disease patients who require continuous biomarker monitoring but want to avoid the discomfort of blood-based testing.

“The value of Lura Health’s wearable salivary sensing platform is health monitoring that is non-invasive and pain-free, accessible through existing dental devices, long-term and discreet,” Weinstein explains.

Recent Milestones

Lura Health has reached several significant milestones in its development. The company recently completed its first-in-human clinical study with prototype devices and received IRB approval for a Non-Significant Risk Designation—an important step in medical device development. “We’ve also completed a prototype contract manufacturing pilot and secured Letters of Intent from large private and public companies who are interested in integrating our sensors into their dental products,” Weinstein shares.

Recently, Lura Health received the following grants: A $475,000 National Science Foundation Phase IIB award, a $75,000 New Jersey Commission on Science, Innovation, and Technology Maternal Health grant and a $120,000 New Jersey Department of Labor Innovation and Research Fellowship Program grant.

The Future

Lura Health’s vision is to make precision medical monitoring simpler and more accessible. “Our mission is to pave the way to preventative and user-friendly health management, using the diagnostic power of saliva,” says Weinstein. By focusing on preventative care and offering a painless alternative to traditional blood tests, Lura Health hopes to redefine how patients manage their health over the long term.

How MATTER Has Helped

Lura Health’s participation in the SMILE Health Accelerator, run by MATTER and CareQuest, has been instrumental in its growth. “The SMILE Health Accelerator paired us with major medical and dental corporations in value-defining partnerships,” Weinstein explains. The company also benefited from its partnership with the Demos Fund, an investment group in the MATTER network, which invested $500,000 in Lura Health.

About MATTER
At MATTER, we believe collaboration is the best way to improve healthcare. The MATTER collaborative includes more than 1,000 current and alumni startups from around the world, working together with dozens of hospitals and health systems, universities and industry-leading companies to build the future of healthcare. Together we are accelerating innovation, advancing care and improving lives. For more information, visit matter.health and follow @MATTERhealth.

About Lura Health
Wearable blood/interstitial fluid-based monitors disrupted blood-based monitoring from ex vivo (outside the body) lab tests to continual in-body measurements. The same will be true with saliva. Lura Health is leading the way with a first-in-class salivary diagnostic in-mouth wearable for continual health and disease measurements.