Interview with Pol Cervera from Exheus

Exheus is a genetics and data science company specializing in RNA analysis, a solution that uses Artificial Intelligence to analyze gene expression to determine what is happening in the human body at any given time.

By extracting blood samples, RNA sequencing and subsequent data processing, a ‘dashboard’ is generated with all the information regarding alterations in metabolic pathways related to performance, nutrition and health of the individuals analyzed. .

Paul Cervera is Co-founder and COO of Exheus:

GD Empresa: How was Exheus born? Tell us where it came from and what initiatives carry it out.

Answer: Exheus was born as a spin-off of the Genomics of Complex Diseases Research Group of the Sant Pau Hospital Research Institute – IIB Sant Pau, the Biomedical Engineering Research Center (CREB) of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia – BarcelonaTech ( UPC), Summit SL and the Mobile World Capital Barcelona innovation program, The Collider, which makes technology transfer between science, the market and society possible.

As a result of more than 10 years of research to analyze the effect of sport on the expression of individual genes, Exheus was born and was taken to other fields such as nutrition, ‘aging’ (genetics of aging) and chronic diseases.

“We work with leading institutions in the treatment of chronic diseases”

Q: Exheus is positioned as the most sophisticated commercial RNA analysis technology in the world. How do you operate and what type of clients are you handling?

A: We work hand in hand with leading institutions in the treatment of chronic diseases, as well as pioneering clinics in fields such as wellness, nutrition and slowing down aging.

We work together with health professionals to help them optimize their precision personalized medicine treatments, providing the most relevant outputs regarding the health status of their patients so that they can design their customized action plans.

“We want to be leaders in the field of transcriptomics”

Q: You have just closed a capital increase of 900,000 euros, 70% of which comes from private funds. What will facilitate the injection of all this capital?

A: Consolidate the technology and optimize all the operations of the company to grow and become leaders in the field of transcriptomics throughout the Spanish territory, to later scale to other markets such as LATAM and other European countries.

Q: The company plans to digitize the product so that doctors and physicians can directly access the patient’s results and, with this, give an assessment of their RNA test. How will this method affect our daily lives? Why is it unique in the world?

A: Currently there is no health monitoring tool that offers such complete parameters regarding our state of health, as well as allowing to monitor specific interventions accurately.

Our goal is to democratize sequencing technology to make it accessible to everyone in such a way that anyone can prevent and correct any type of non-communicable disease and in turn prolong their lives in the healthiest way possible.

Q: You talk regarding promoting the consolidation of personalized medicine. What does it depend on and what levels are you willing to reach?

A: Globally, without a doubt. Personalized medicine is here to stay. Large public and private funds are already allocated to creating new therapies in a personalized way, and more importantly: prevention is becoming increasingly important in today’s health systems.

“Technology transfer is a fundamental pillar in the development of modern economies”

Q: Technology transfer between different sectoral levels is crucial for the success of your project. Is it necessary to further promote this idea for the common good and for the future of medicine?

A: Universities like Harvard, MIT or Stanford have been doing it for years. Technology transfer, as long as it is aimed at solving current major problems, is one of the fundamental pillars of the development of modern economies. We have the opportunity to be pioneers in this field at the national level, but we must believe it and bet on it to avoid the flight of talent to other countries.

Q: How has artificial intelligence helped improve people’s health? Do you think it might become a short-term alternative to assess the health of professionals within companies?

A: It is already a reality, without going any further, it is only necessary to analyze the great advances in AI that are reflected in technologies such as, for example, GPT chat. With AI, amazing points have been reached that human action alone would have taken decades to reach (or would not have reached).

In any case, AI is still a means, not an end. You have to set measurable objectives and use the new information technologies to achieve them.

Q: Exheus has also received another grant of 50,000 euros from EIT Health, the largest European organization for innovation in health, whose mission is to accelerate entrepreneurship and innovation. Are you preparing to make the leap to the international arena?

A: Of course, Exheus is a global project in the process of growth. There is a long way to go. Our objective is to accelerate the growth process as much as possible and that is why the help of international organizations is a very relevant accelerator pedal in the phase in which we are.

Visit the website of Exheus to learn more regarding this company.