Andrea Pais
Andrea Pais is an engineer, entrepreneur, and the CEO of Novel Microdevices, a startup that’s revolutionizing medical diagnostics.
Founded in 2015 with her brother and Vice President of Engineering, Rohan Pais, the Baltimore, Maryland-based company is working to develop affordable, point-of-care, testing solutions for a variety of pathogens. The sibling duo co-invented the technology used in their novel product, the NovelDx system.
It’s a lightweight, portable, and battery-powered device that uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology to analyze patient samples and quickly identify diseases. It also scans for the presence of any genetic mutations that are prone to antibiotic resistance.
Through the VentureWell-supported National Institutes of Health Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx®) program, she was able to increase her understanding of government contracting, valuable knowledge that is helping Novel Microdevices’ expansion and commercialization.
The company has reached major fundraising success in both government grants and contracts and private funding, and has also grown to 22 full-time employees.
Pais recently shared with VentureWell that the company is now moving from early development into late-stage verification and manufacturing scale-up, and continuing on the path to bringing their innovative rapid molecular diagnostics into real-world use.
