What’s Driving the Boom in At-Home Medical Tests?
Some say direct-to-consumer diagnostic kits, currently available for everything from food sensitivity to Lyme disease, offer the convenience and low cost that a doctor’s visit lacks. Others argue they’re more harmful than helpful.
In 2017, Julia Cheek broke a record on ABC’s Shark Tank: The show’s judges awarded her a $1 million deal for her company, EverlyWell, marking the largest investment a solo female entrepreneur had received in the show’s history.
EverlyWell, an at-home medical testing business, currently offers testing panels for conditions as varied as food sensitivity, menopause, and HPV. Cheek stresses that it’s a middleman service, not a diagnostic company: Customers collect their swabs and samples privately, then send them to a lab for analysis. “The tests offered through EverlyWell and those ordered in a physician’s office and processed at traditional brick-and-mortar labs are the same,” she says.
According to Cheek, less than three years into its operation, EverlyWell has seen 300% year-over-year customer growth, making it a powerful player in the rapidly growing category of direct-to-consumer testing companies and products. Others include…
