PixCell Medical

PixCell Medical is a medical device company and developer of portable complete blood count devices. The company's flagship product, HemoScreen, has entered commercial global distribution during 2020 following over 10 years in development. Based on Viscoelastic Focusing technology developed by the co-founders, it performs complete blood count analysis in a few minutes providing 20 parameter blood count results. The company is headquartered in Yokne'am Illit, Israel, with a US-based subsidiary in Denver, USA.

PixCell Medical was founded in 2008 to develop the HemoScreen device based on the Viscoelastic Focusing (VEF) technology discovered by co-founders Dr. Avishay Bransky and Prof. Max Herzberg in the Technion.Following the thechnology's successful CE marking registration in 2013, PixCell received a 2 million USD investment. Then in March 2018 the company won a two-year grant by the European Union's research and innovation program "Horizon 2020" valued at 3 million USD (2.5 million EUR) in support of further development of HemoScreen. Later that year the company's HemoScreen device received FDA 510(K) clearance.In May 2021, South Korea-based SoulBrain Holdings, purchased a majority control in PixCell Medical as part of their strategic branching out into the bio-healthcare industry. As part of the acquisition, SoulBrain had also invested over 40 million USD in PixCell to assist in commercial growth.

HemoScreen is defined as a portable, miniature, complete blood count (CBC) analyzer designed for point of care testing (i.e. negating the need to send blood samples to a central lab), and utilizing disposable self-contained cartridges (coined "lab-on-a-cartridge"). It provides 20 standard CBC parameters, including RBC indices, WBC count, Hemoglobin, WBC 5-diff and platelets parameters. Tests results are typically obtained within 5 minutes, and needing a 40µl sample of either capillary or venous blood.

The analysis of the blood sample takes place within a disposable cartridge inserted into the analyzer, in two separate lanes (20µl of blood each). The first stage processes one lane and performers a basic blood count, giving CBC parameters and count of each blood cell type. The second stage mixes the second blood lane with reagents in order to perform a 5-diff analysis to differentiate white blood cell types and "flag" any abnormalities.

The patented Viscoelastic Focusing technology is used to align the blood cells in a single plane, so they can easily be identified and counted by the microscopic lens. Differentiation and analysis of blood cell types is conducted with the help of machine vision algorithms also developed at PixCell Medical.

Analyzer dimensions and weight: 30 x 17.5 x 26cm (HWD), 5.5kg (weight).

Parameters analyzed: WBC, RBC, PLT, HGB, MPV, HCT, MCV, MCHC, RDW-CV, NEU# & NEU%, LYM# & LYM%, MON# & MON%, EOS# & EOS%, and BAS# & BAS%.

Technical specifications: LCD display touch panel, Windows 10 OS, Ethernet and USB ports, and HL7 and POCT1A connectivity standards.