Enspectra Health Receives $4.0 Million NIH Grant to Advance a New Field of Virtual Biopsies

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May 26, 2021, 10:00 ET

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Enspectra Health, a digital health company dedicated to pioneering the field of virtual biopsies, announced today that it has received a Phase IIB award of $4.0 million under the National Institutes of Health's Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) for the continued development of its novel imaging technology to aid in the evaluation of nonmelanoma skin cancers (NMSCs).

NMSCs account for more than 75 percent of all cancers diagnosed in the United States. NMSC can cause destruction to the skin and underlying tissue within months and if poorly diagnosed, can lead to unnecessary biopsies or death. Today's gold standard for diagnosis is a biopsy which requires excision of skin followed by microscopic evaluation. Of the 16 million biopsies conducted annually, approximately half are not cancerous and could be avoided.

Enspectra Health is pioneering a new field of virtual biopsies, providing high-resolution images of cellular structures in living skin without the need for an incision. With real-time evaluation across the surface of the skin, Enspectra's technology holds the potential to reduce unnecessary biopsies and allow clinicians to examine suspicious lesions earlier.

Funds from the NIH grant will enable Enspectra Health to accelerate product development and generate clinical evidence to commercialize its platform technology.

"At Enspectra Health we are committed to delivering on our vision for virtual biopsies, which could transform how the clinical community evaluates nonmelanoma skin cancer," said Gabriel Sanchez, CoFounder and CEO at Enspectra Health. "With this NIH grant in hand, we will advance to the next stage of product development and move one step closer to introducing this advanced imaging technology to the clinical and patient communities."

About Enspectra Health
Enspectra Health is an emerging, privately held digital health company pioneering a new field of virtual biopsies to transform the way physicians evaluate a broad spectrum of skin conditions. The Company's novel technology combines reflectance confocal and multiphoton laser scanning microscopy to generate real-time, multispectral images at the cellular level, without the need for an incision. The technology allows for an instantaneous evaluation of rich, digital pathology images of various skin tissues, potentially enabling earlier and less costly interventions.

For more information, please visit www.enspectrahealth.com or contact Investor Relations at [email protected].

Disclaimer

This research is supported by the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R44CA221591-03. The content is solely the responsibility of the company and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

SOURCE Enspectra Health