Why Allergezy?Food Allergy affects around 15 million Americans today, and that number is rapidly growing. Currently, blood and skin prick tests generally provide inconclusive results on whether a patient has a true food allergy or if a patient is only sensitized (does not have clinical Food Allergy symptoms). The alternative, the Oral Food Challenge, is dangerous and costly. Allergezy's vision is to create a safe, cheap, and accurate blood-based genomic diagnostic test that can differentiate between sensitized and allergic patients. Doing so would be economically and socially advantageous to many afflicted with food allergies.
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The Starting Point
Three years ago, CEO and Founder of Allergezy, Ayush Alag, took a skin prick test and a blood test to determine whether he had a true food allergy or if he was only sensitized. The results were contradictory and inconclusive. His next step was to take the Oral Food Challenge, a test which could cause anaphylaxis and has killed individuals in the past. After undergoing the frightening Oral Food Challenge, Ayush vowed to create a safer diagnostic test that classified individuals accurately. His goal is to prevent inaccurate conclusions about the level of a person's allergies and to help prevent lives from being put in danger by the Oral Food Challenge.
Moving Forward
Afterwards, Ayush began researching allergies and found key CpG islands that lead to Food Allergy. Next, he built a machine learning predictor using a publicly available dataset. Currently, in cooperation with an allergist at Stanford University, Allergezy is collecting blood samples to enhance its diagnostic test.