“It’s crazy to think that a little saliva can completely disrupt your life,” says Amélie. Since she was 11 and the start of her periods, she has seen three doctors and two gynecologists, had “tons” of exams, and taken the pill to relieve her suffering. “I heard hundreds of times that I was crazy and that my pain was normal,” she says. It took nineteen years for me to know I had endometriosis thanks to a saliva test! »
After seeking information from associations and support groups, Amélie actually came across the project of the Lyon start-up Ziwig, which was in the process of creating Endotest, the first saliva test in the world to diagnose this disease which affects one in ten women.
No more waiting for menopause to be free from pain
“It was so simple to make,” she says. I received a kit at my home with very clear, easy to apply instructions. Simply insert as much saliva as possible into a tube and return it in a package. » Four weeks later, she had an appointment with a doctor to find out the results. “It was positive and it agreed with an MRI that I had had in the meantime,” she explains.
For her, it is a “relief” to put words “to the indescribable pain” she had felt for almost twenty years. “Once the disease was diagnosed, I was able to benefit from better care. And then it feels great to feel listened to and understood, she says. It’s revolutionary, something like that. Otherwise, I would have done like my mother and my grandmother before me, who had the same symptoms: wait until menopause to be free of pain. »
The most sought-after chronic disease
It is to avoid such a situation that the president and founder of Ziwig, Yahya El Mir, created his start-up in 2019. “Young girls who are 15 years old today will no longer experience the same wandering diagnosis – approximately eight years – than patients who are 30 years old, he assures. When we decided to focus on women’s health, we saw that endometriosis was the most searched for disease. It shows how much of a need there was. »
He then considers the Endotest as “a breakthrough innovation”, that is to say having “ten times better than what we had before”. As Amélie presented, the test is “simple” and “non-intrusive”. “And above all, it is more efficient and reliable than all the tools that exist, including surgery,” says the creator of Ziwig.
How does saliva detect endometriosis?
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine Evidence effectively confirmed the performance and reproducibility of the test with sensitivity and specificity greater than 95%. “The Endotest is more efficient than other tools because with molecular biology, we are as close as possible to the source, to the pathology,” affirms the founding president. We are at the level of cells, not that of symptoms. The disease can be detected as early as possible and in all its forms, superficial or not. »
To obtain these results, Ziwig uses the combination of two disruptive technologies, high-throughput sequencing and artificial intelligence. “Once the tests are received in the laboratory, we will extract the RNA and isolate them,” explains Yahya El Mir. Then, they are mixed with different chemical reagents to give them particular properties in order to prepare them for sequencing. During this step, the biological information contained in a drop of saliva is transformed into digital information. It’s like a camera that transforms the reality of what we see into a file. »
This data is then processed by artificial intelligence, given the large quantity of information contained. A laboratory has just been inaugurated near Dax, in the Landes, in order to anticipate an increase in demand and be able to analyze several thousand samples each week.
A test reimbursed by the end of the year
Despite the High Authority for Health’s approval of Endotest last January, considering it “promising” and “innovative”, Amélie is one of the rare French women to have carried it out. In fact, Ziwig has chosen to wait for the direct debit to be fully taken care of – the price of which is around 1,000 euros, justified by the technology – before launching it in France.
“The Minister of Health, Catherine Vautrin, has just confirmed the reimbursement of the test by the end of this year in France,” rejoices Yahya El Mir. And to specify that the test is already available in more than fifteen countries in Europe and the Middle East thanks to CE certification and could soon be available in the United States.
And Ziwig works on other pathologies. Studies are underway to diagnose, again with saliva, gynecological diseases but also cancers such as ovarian cancer. The company thus hopes to “detect earlier” and “save lives”.