To build the diagnostic infrastructure women deserved forty years ago.
Every part of modern medicine — from the drug trial to the reference range on your lab report — was designed around a 70kg man. For decades, women were excluded from clinical research on grounds of "hormonal variability." The result is a healthcare system that treats us as an outlier rather than the center of the work.
EllaDx is rebuilding the foundation. Panels that start from female physiology. Ranges stratified by cycle phase and life stage. An evidence base written by, reviewed by, and tested on women. Not because it's a niche — because it's half the population.
A seven-year
diagnosis.
Previously product at Ro. Biochemistry at Yale. Has lived every line of this story.
The labs were always 'normal.'
At 28, Sarah went to her primary care doctor with the same story every quarter for two years: crushing fatigue, disappearing libido, anxiety that had a cadence. Every round of labs came back within range. Every visit ended with the same sentence — 'Your numbers look fine. Have you thought about therapy?'
The numbers were fine. The ranges were wrong.
After the seventh visit, she pulled her own reports and went looking. Her TSH was 3.4. Technically within the 0.4–4.5 reference range. But the research literature — the part that was still mostly men — suggested that a TSH above 2.5 in a symptomatic woman trying to conceive was clinically significant. She was a specialist away from a diagnosis. Most women aren't.
The reference range is an editorial decision.
Sarah spent the next year reading the primary literature on how reference ranges get built — who counts as 'normal,' who gets excluded, which biomarkers women are routinely denied on the grounds of cost. The deeper she went, the angrier she got. And the angrier she got, the more obvious the business became.
Build what should have existed.
In early 2024, she left her job. She spent six months interviewing endocrinologists, cardiologists, and women. She hired Dr. Ruth Okafor from Mount Sinai to chief the medical side. She raised a seed round from investors who, remarkably, had also had seven-year diagnoses. EllaDx launched in beta in Brooklyn in October 2024. Ten panels. 180+ biomarkers. Female-specific ranges on day one.
Two years,
and counting.
The short version of how we got here. The long version lives in the Journal.
Incorporation
Sarah Okonkwo and Dr. Ruth Okafor incorporate EllaDx, Inc. in New York. The first hire is a clinical research associate; the second is an illustrator.
Seed round closed
$6.2M raised$6.2M seed led by Forerunner Ventures, with participation from Female Founders Fund and 22 angel investors — every one of them a woman.
Brooklyn beta launch
1,200 waitlistEllaDx launches in beta in Brooklyn with the first three panels: Hormone & Longevity, Thyroid, and Fertility. 1,200 women join the waitlist in the first 72 hours.
Expansion to 10 panels
14,000 samplesAfter 2,300 beta results and a revalidation cycle, we go live with the full 10-panel library and our first round of female-specific reference ranges, built on 14,000 samples.
CLIA-accredited lab partnership
5-day turnaroundExclusive testing partnership with a CLIA/CAP-accredited lab in New Jersey. Turnaround time drops from 12 days to 5. Every sensitive assay is cross-validated with a second lab.
National rollout
All 50 statesEllaDx is live in all 50 U.S. states. Our phlebotomy network includes every Quest Diagnostics location nationwide, plus in-home draws available in 42 states.
Series A
$28M Series A$28M Series A led by Union Square Ventures. The raise funds our research program and a full-time team of six biostatisticians rebuilding reference ranges quarterly.
40,000 women tested
Open methodologyThe reference dataset crosses 40,000 U.S. women. We begin publishing our methodology and ranges openly, for any researcher or clinician to audit.
A lot, honestly.
Start here.
Test with us, read what we've written, or come work here. All three have the same outcome — a body of evidence built with you in mind.