bioAffinity Technologies expands Lung diagnostics pipeline into COPD and Asthma

Yeah, we're certainly seeing growth. Our our uh second quarter was 200% growth year-over-year and we're we're seeing growth certainly in third quarter year-over-year.

All right, welcome back inside our Proactive news room and joining me now is Maria Zaines. She's the CEO of BioAffinity Technologies. And Maria, it's nice to see you. How are you?

I'm fine. Thank you. I hope you're the same.

Yeah, doing well. Thank you. Excited to learn a little bit more about the company. I've been doing a lot of research on it and you you have a specific uh specific uh item for a specific need is as one way to describe it. But I'll let you sort of give us some background on the company.

Sure. So we have built actually a platform technology for looking at and and detecting different lung diseases and we started with the most difficult, which is lung cancer. We have a non-invasive test that um detects lung cancer at its very earliest stage. And what is important about this is that if you can find lung cancer at stage one or early stage, you can cure it and that's what we do. So what the technology, the platform is one where we're looking at the micro environment in the lungs. We look at a sample, actually a sputum sample, collected at home, very easy for um a patient similar to what Cologuard does. We collect sputum and that we analyze it using a technology called flow cytometry that also has with it um an AI built algorithm and very quickly we can determine whether someone has cancer or does not with very high performance performance.

Um, I I say this is a platform technology because we're very excited in taking that same idea of looking real time what's happening in your lungs and detecting uh COPD and asthma, but equally important, being able to determine just what technol what drug of the many drugs can actually uh work with you if you have or work well if most effective if you have asthma or COPD. So we're looking at a totality of sort of looking at the lung and and being able to uh to help doctors give patients just better treatment and uh and cures.

And and that early uh detection as you mentioned is is so important, especially when you talk about about cancers and and and most notably as you mentioned lung cancer as well. So, um and this this product will also there's some reimbursement as well. So it sounds like it's a it's a real win for for the person at home who's, you know, suffering or looking for for answers for something that may be happening to them.

Yeah, what has uh this is um doctors prescribe this to their patients who often have uh lung nodules, so we used to call them a spot on the lung. Um and most of them are benign. Most of these nodules are benign. In fact, a very large study found that out of 100 people with a suspicious nodule, only four have lung cancer, but you don't want to miss that one if you're one in four. And so that's where we're used um with patients. It really it not only um can find cancer at an early stage, but it also helps people who shouldn't don't need to go through much more uh invasive biopsy or any additional tests. And so it has a dual purpose in telling you, yes, you have cancer, but also equally important for people who are suffering, you don't have cancer, um and we can just continue with uh surveillance.

Maria, is the is the key of the company now, uh is it getting the word out? I know that you presented at at at chest 2026, which obviously is a a major conference. So is it is it about getting the word out now and and really starting to see growth within the company?

Yeah, we're certainly seeing growth. Our our uh second quarter was 200% growth year over year and we're we're seeing growth certainly in third quarter year over year. Um, I think that the it is not only getting the word out, but we are also expanding uh the use for this and this is largely due to physicians. We're out in the market now. We do have reimbursement Medicare, most um private insurance uh reimburses this test. But it's getting um what we have found when we're out uh with physicians are a number of things. and one is they're starting to use it in surveillance. So lung cancer is the leading cancer killer both in the United States and worldwide, but very in the last five years, there's been tremendous gains in the ability to treat early stage lung cancer and it's curable. Um, something that when my dad got lung cancer, I couldn't say, but now I can. So finding that early stage for the leading cancer killer is uh is just phenomenal.

Yeah. And you mentioned COPD, you mentioned asthma, you mentioned other uses for it as well. Uh is that the key to this product? because as you mentioned, it is a platform. So the ability to to use it in a in a number of different scenarios really is a I would think a big benefit for BioAffinity.

Yes, this will our our next test in the pipeline is one that not only is not lung, which is the name if you see behind me, I have um the early detection of lung cancer saves lives, but um effective treatment of COPD and asthma equally can save lives. What we are building with the platform is really precision medicine. It's something that is uh a companion diagnostic and it's a huge market. The we look at the lung cancer market as about $5 billion in this in the United States. We have um worldwide uh patent uh protection, but we're focusing on the US. But in the COPD asthma space, we're looking at $26 billion markets or greater. So it's a extremely, I think needed and fits a a very important market need of understanding what drug works for you and what drugs works for me and they're different. So uh it'll be an important uh product.

Makes a lot of sense. Uh last question is just uh next six months to a year, what what could we kind of expect from Bi? What are the things that you're focusing on?

Well, we recently um announced several partnerships, um several uh collaborations and one was with AV Medical, which is a um very tied into and and uh distributorship in the VA. and we have coverage there, medical coverage, reimbursement. So I think that will be very important. This is a very special and important uh market for us in the federal government and the and the Veteran's Administration here. But we're also working with Piture um and that will be a very important technology partner as we get into COPD and asthma because we're adding not only uh the platform that we use for lung, which is a flowtometry platform, but we're also adding a molecular component, a proteomic component, which will be even more, I think uh higher performing and and uh very exciting. So those types of um uh collaborations, I think you'll see coming from us more and more as people start to look at uh the benefit of being our partner.

All right, fascinating stuff for sure and very important work. Maria, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time and uh, as I mentioned, it uh affects a lot of people, so it sounds like it's really interesting. I look forward to following your story as it develops, okay?

I appreciate this opportunity. Thank you.

Yeah, good to see you. There's Maria Zanes, the CEO of Bio Affinity Technologies.