The three pillars of our business strategy at KARAHCO AS

1. Business with Impact

In an increasingly globalized and fast-growing world, we believe that sustainability of a startup like us depends on how impactful we are. The "business with impact" approach adopted by KARAHCO AS is all about being a powerful force for good, without seeing any conflict of interest of having a range of social, environmental and commercial goals at the same time. By drawing upon our experience, collaborations, partners, and society, we believe it is possible to reach these goals. 

2. Innovation is a key aspect

In an increasingly competitive globalized world and dramatically altered landscape due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for high-quality groundbreaking MedTech ideas has become a necessity. It is the time to build new businesses and adopt new ways of doing business. To this end, Innovation Norway, the Norwegian Government's instrument for innovation and development of Norwegian enterprises and industry, contributed a total of NOK 12.5 billion to development and innovation in the Norwegian business sector in 2020. 

In line with the Norwegian vision of the future of healthcare, we believe that medical technology innovation is the only way to enable significant advances in the clinical diagnostics sector and to drive greater value for patients and end users. Innovation is also the only option for us in KARAHCO AS, as a small startup, to create sustainable and impactful business and to achieve our own vision of becoming one of the frontline MedTech companies in the world. 

3. Tailored microbiology diagnostics techniques 

Infectious diseases are responsible for significant morbidity and mortality worldwide, especially in low-income countries. Current diagnostic methods for infections, such as bacterial culture, microscopy, biochemical tests, and molecular assays, largely rely on expensive equipment and intensive technical expertise. On the other hand, the specificity and sensitivity of rapid serological tests are not optimal, and their diagnostic accuracy is disputable. The on-going COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the lack of enough ASSURED (Affordable, Sensitive, Specific, User-friendly, Robust and rapid, Equipment-free, Deliverable) tools for pathogen detection at or close to the point-of-care.

We aim to keep our molecular testing pipelines as ASSURED as possible. Our products shall meet the local needs and exploit the available resources of all the market countries, regardless of their income status. Our innovative microbial identification assays at KARAHCO AS shall particularly contribute to overcoming the challenges faced by most of the diagnostic laboratories in low-resource settings with regards to poor infrastructure, lack of equipment, unstable logistics, hard quality-assurance, and shortage of human resources.

Nabil Karah, MD., PhD.