Sep-Scan, an effort to beat the deadly sepsis

Pune-based startup FastSense Innovations works to find easy and affordable way to diagnose the sepsis

- Namita Shibad

PUNE: Problems abound or existing solutions can be made better, often leading to the beginning of a startup. Preeti Joshi was trained at IIT Varanasi in MEMS (Micro Electronic Mechanical Systems), doing research at NCL when her mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and later passed away. Says she, "That incident shook me. I thought why are we doing research that has intellectual value but does not impact people's lives more directly? Why shouldn't I use my time and energy to do something that can help people more directly?"

And that led to the setting up of a company that has now developed the Sep-Scan.

Recalling the time, Preeti says, "Together with my husband Harish Joshi (IIT Kharagpur and ISB Hyderabad) and Sailendra Mishra (Also IIT Kharagpur and ISB Hyderabad) we decided that we need to build a platform that could detect cancer. With our collective expertise in Biotechnology, AI, ML, MEMS and Business Management we applied for a grant to BIRAC and started our company, FastSense Innovations in 2018 with ₹1 Cr."

They worked and developed a point-of-care platform to detect liver cancer. This involved meeting doctors to understand the biomarkers and then working on creating a chip and a device.

However, during the process of doing their field trials, Covid struck the world.

"And we had to stop all our work. It came to a complete standstill. It threw our supply chains into chaos and stalled collaborations. Components were delayed, funding was uncertain, and progress seemed impossible."

Around that time, Preeti's three-year-old son fell ill and was diagnosed with sepsis caused by an infection. This again became a turning point for the three of them. While her son recovered from the illness, she learnt how deadly Sepsis can be.