Glooma
Since its creation in June 2021, the company has maintained a strong link with NOVA’s academic community, being incubated at the NOVA SBE Haddad Entrepreneurship Institute. Throughout 2022, Glooma participated in several initiatives, including a branding course, the Startup Summer Experience initiative and NOVA Medical School’s Tech Hub.
Glooma is developing a home and portable medical device that complements breast self-palpation, the SenseGlove. This device is a glove that contains piezoelectric sensors and connects to a mobile application that contains a Machine Learning algorithm. By combining sensors and artificial intelligence, Glooma is able to create a profile for each user and carry out monthly breast health monitoring, alerting the patient whenever there is a suspicion, thus differentiating itself from the existing competition.
Their ambition is to improve the level of healthcare, so it’s important to emphasize that this solution is about improving breast self-examination, helping less literate populations to have faster access to diagnostic tests. The goals is to put the experience of thousands of doctors into the hands of women with the help of AI, encouraging them to act at the right time, reducing uncertainty and the risk of late detection of breast cancer, improving the prognosis of the disease.
Glooma’s goals are to raise awareness of the importance of breast cancer prevention, to enable and empower women to take better control of their breast health, ensuring that more women get an early diagnosis, avoiding more aggressive treatments, mutilating surgeries or even death, and to give women the power to control their own health. The main aim of Glooma’s solution is to reduce the 35% of breast cancers that are detected late.
Glooma also sets itself apart from the competition by using piezoelectric sensors that can be used on all types of breasts, including women with and without implants. The faculty, and in particular the Biomedical Engineering course, was fundamental in the initial research into the technology to be used, since it was validated while still at the FCT after some discussions with professors at the faculty. Glooma also differentiates itself through its business model and brand positioning, which came about through a partnership with Nova SBE and Nova Junior Consulting.
In addition to collaborations with NOVA’s various faculties, Glooma has also established partnerships with entities such as Value for Health Colab (VOH CoLAB) and Patient Innovation. Of particular note are the collaborations with VOHCoLAB to support research into Glooma’s value proposition, and Glooma’s support in the development of VOHCoLAB’s Worthmed platform. The company also took part in the Patient Innovation Bootcamp 2021, organized by EIT Health and Patient Innovation.
Between February and May 2023, Glooma conducted research together with NOVA Junior Consulting to identify the best business model to adopt, and is still working with NOVA Junior Consulting on the market entry strategy. Recently, in September 2023, Glooma was recognized with an award in the “Caregiver” category at the Patient Innovation Awards, held at the Estoril Conferences. The collaborations and recognitions highlight Glooma’s continued commitment and success with the support of NOVA University Lisbon in the field of healthcare innovation.