The science behind Oova

What makes Oova so different?

Oova was developed by a doctor and biomedical engineer who both struggled when trying to grow their families. The company is a spin-out from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The team has involved clinicians (Ob/Gyns, Reproductive endocrinologists, and fertility specialists) throughout the product development to ensure the information that comes from the platform will be useful to the patient and the clinician.

We spent three years developing innovative biochemistry to accurately measure luteinizing hormone (LH) and progesterone in urine. The way the test works is a urine sample is provided on the sample pad, and then after 10 minutes, either one, two, or three lines appear on the test strip (learn more here). There is a control line informing you that the test worked. The second two lines measure the hormone concentration. The intensity of the lines vary based on how much hormone is present in the sample.

Our test gets so granular that we can't detect differences by the naked eye. To solve this, we have embedded image processing and computer vision algorithms directly into our smartphone app.

A woman would provide a urine sample, wait 10 minutes, and then scan the cartridge using the camera directly on her phone to get her results. We interpret the intensities on the test strip and give her the results.

The product has been developed completely using human female urine samples. We did not develop using animal or synthetic urine, so all of the normalization and validation testing we did was in the appropriate sample type.

Please review our technical white paper to learn more about the science behind Oova's technology.