XaTek’s ‘ClotChip’ Blood-Clotting Sensor Wins Breakthrough Status

XaTek Inc. has received Breakthrough Device designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its in-development ClotChip, marking a significant and distinguishing step in advancing the company’s life-changing portable blood-clotting sensor toward commercialization. The FDA Breakthrough Devices Program was created in 2018 to expedite the development, assessment and review of technologies that “provide for more effective treatment or diagnosis of life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating human disease or conditions” over existing approved products.
 
ClotChip measures a patient’s bleeding risk profile at bedside from a single drop of blood obtained from a fingerstick, much like a glucometer measures a patient’s blood-glucose level. Such immediate notice can be a critical step in saving the life of someone who may otherwise die from excessive bleeding or clotting.
 
“I’m tremendously proud of the entire XaTek team and their remarkable efforts, which lead the FDA to believe ClotChip indeed satisfies all of the criteria for Breakthrough Devices Designation for the proposed indication for use,” said John Zak, XaTek’s co-founder and CEO. “Once commercially available, this device will fulfill a critical and unmet clinical need for the newer generation of drug therapies known as ‘direct oral anti-coagulants’—for which there is no point-of-care test available today.” XaTek intends to pursue additional indications for use in the near future, potentially including patients on other anti-coagulant therapies, those with hemophilia and other rare bleeding conditions and those with trauma-related indications.