Salistick pregnancy test kit. Credit – Jonathan Ben Chaim (Salignosticks)
Salistick, the world’s first saliva-based pregnancy test produced by Salignostics, an Israeli startup that develops home pregnancy testing devices, will now be sold at Boots, a British health and beauty retailer, under the Boots brand.
The Salistick test, which launched in March in Israel at the Super-Pharm retail pharmacy chain, will be sold in Boots’ pharmacies and online stores. Boots has been around for 175 years and operates approximately 2,100 stores ranging from local pharmacies to large stores in central cities.
Building on its UK launch in mid-2023, Salistick says the firm has found a strong partner in Abingdon Health), the exclusive distributor for the UK and Ireland. Abingdon Health has already delivered over 100,000 Salistick tests in the UK, showing positive demand. The product’s launch in Ireland and Sweden in late 2023 was also well-received, said Salignostics.
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How many times have you seen this as a storyline in a movie or a TV show? A woman thinks she might be pregnant and so she rushes out to get a home pregnancy test from the nearest pharmacy. Such storylines are used for either dramatic or comedic effect, as the audience watches the woman or couple or group of friends as they wait anxiously for the results. And then the woman must see a doctor to be sure.
But these tests are complicated and use urine samples. Now imagine if someone could just lick a stick for a saliva sample in order to see if she is pregnant or not.
So, now, Salignostics boasts that with its SaliStick, a pregnancy test can be done anywhere and at any convenient time. The product, says the company, is “very simple, easy to use, and delivers accurate results in a few minutes.”
The European CE certification has already approved the SaliStick kit and has received Medical Devices and Accessories approval from Israel’s Ministry of Health. Salignostics has completed a 510(K) initial Q-submission of SaliStick to the FDA in the US. To support the commercialization of SaliStick, the company has established a new manufacturing facility in the Lavon Industrial Zone in Northern Israel with a monthly production capacity of 1 million units.
Founded in 2016 by a team of researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who have many years of experience in cracking the secrets of saliva, Jerusalem-based Salignostics is an R&D company focusing on the development of saliva based rapid diagnostics tests (RDT), utilizing a lateral flow immunoassay platform. The company’s platform is comprised of a “tool box” of technologies which amplify the saliva as a detectable body-fluid by overcoming different chemical and biological saliva related obstacles. Implementation of these technologies transforms saliva from a non-detectable to a detectable body-fluid
Following years of scientific research in saliva, Salignosticks’ founders began commercializing their intellectual property and developed user-friendly products to accurately detect a range of physiological circumstances including pregnancy and COVID-19 on the basis of simple saliva samples. Among other innovations, the company developed products to detect malaria, cardiac risk, Helicobacter pylori and other diseases. During development of the tests, the company raised pre-seed and seed capital from private investors and received four grants from the Israel Innovation Authority. The company has raised a total of $16 million to date, and is now raising additional funding to support sales, marketing, and R&D.
Dr. Guy Krief, co-founder and deputy CEO of Salignostics, said, “The launch of Salistick in a powerful chain like Boots is another milestone in our ongoing momentum in Europe in general and the UK in particular. Boots is the leading health and beauty retailer in the UK, and the fact that it will offer a saliva-based pregnancy test under its own brand will improve the familiarity, trust, and adoption of the women who will purchase Salistick.”
