Inanovate was founded in Massachusetts by two Babson MBA graduates, after winning first prize at the Babson Business Plan competition. It built its business on Bio-ID, a protein microarray platform whose Bio-ID800 instrument was a bench-top analyzer paired with a disposable cartridge that carried the assay. Its lead offering was Lyme-ID, an IgG test for antibodies to the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.
Lyme-ID competed by collapsing the conventional two-step Lyme serology sequence into a single microarray run that reported cell-lysate, OspC and VlsE targets together, the modified two-tier approach that standard two-tier testing split across separate steps. Its differentiation was mechanistic and channel-based: a single-step assay read on Inanovate's own instrument, offered with at-home sample collection and laboratory processing. It targeted symptomatic patients and people suspected of Lyme disease.
