“Our challenge? To quickly diagnose and treat sepsis in the ER”

Loop Dx is developing a fast test for early detection of blood bacterial infections. The goal is to help ERs diagnose patients that are developing sepsis (the body’s inflammatory response to a serious infection, often deadly) so they can quickly be administered intravenous antibiotics. Enrique Hernández, founder and CEO of Loop Dx, explains why he decided to become an entrepreneur and the company’s short-term goals.

Why did you want to be an entrepreneur?

I started down the path of entrepreneurship because I wanted to transform how we are currently doing and applying science, which focuses mainly on posing laboratory-based questions and publishing in scientific journals. The idea is to get researchers out of the lab so they can find where their science can really be applied. As a result, I decided to start to apply this dream with Loop Dx.

What is the most important strategic decision you’ve made so far?

The project got its start in the d·HEALTH Barcelona program, where we explored in-depth the status of the diagnostics market for bacterial diseases. After the end of the program, the team I had spent the year working with dissolved for various reasons. This gave me the freedom to take another shot at the idea behind the project. And Loop Dx was born.

What is the best advice you’ve ever been given?

After participating in several accelerators and programs for entrepreneurs, we’ve got a lot of advice... a lot. But the best was right at the beginning, when then director of Moebio, the initiative to promote entrepreneurship that offers the d·HEALTH program, told us that it takes as much work to get a big project off the ground as it does a small one. And I didn’t really understand what he meant until a year ago.

And now what? What milestones do you want to achieve in the short term?

The main milestone Loop Dx has set for this coming year is to prove the test’s biomarkers are specific enough to screen patients with blood bacterial infections.