Interview with Isabel Caruana, CEO and Founder of Ailin Health: “The support of CDTI Innovación and the European MRR funds has allowed us to move faster in technological development and in validating our diagnostic model.”
Ailin Health is driving a new clinical diagnostic model based on self-sampling kits and artificial intelligence to improve access to prevention. With the support of CDTI Innovación and the European MRR funds, the company is accelerating its growth and consolidating its value proposition in the field of digital health.
People are living longer and increasingly developing chronic diseases. At the same time, healthcare systems face long waiting times for basic tests and diagnoses. As a result, early detection and prevention have become a social necessity. Digital health opens up new ways to bring medical services closer to people, facilitate access to information, and relieve the burden on healthcare professionals. In this context, Ailin Health emerges, supported by CDTI Innovación and the European MRR funds, with a commitment to more accessible, agile, and people-centered diagnostics.
The story of Ailin Health does not begin in a laboratory or a boardroom, but in a moment of personal vulnerability that highlighted a reality shared by millions of people. During the pandemic, while pregnant, Isabel Caruana—CEO and founder of the company—faced something seemingly simple: undergoing a routine blood test.
“What seemed like something so common, like a blood test, ended up being a real challenge,” Caruana recalls, adding: “Overcrowded centers, waiting lists, overwhelmed phone lines, and the feeling of having no control over something essential to your health.” That experience marked the starting point for a deeper reflection. “I thought: if this is happening to me, what about the thousands of people who depend on the system?”
A conversation with her sisters, who live in the United States, proved particularly revealing. Faced with a similar situation, their recommendation was immediate: “Do a home test kit.” This contrast highlighted differences in access to diagnostics: while home-based diagnostics were more widespread in other countries, in Spain this option was still uncommon.
“I realized there was a huge gap: the system was extraordinary at many things, but it wasn’t prepared to offer accessible diagnostics during times of saturation or to promote preventive health,” Caruana explains. That was when the idea of creating an alternative took shape—one that would put basic diagnostics within people’s reach, without waiting lists or travel, but with the highest level of clinical rigor.
In response, Ailin Health was born: a technology-based company in the eHealth space that combines self-sampling kits, laboratory analysis, and artificial intelligence models to facilitate access to clinical tests and promote prevention. “I decided there had to be a way to get lab tests done from home, with clinical rigor, without depending on waiting lists, and with results that people can understand.”
From the outset, Ailin was conceived as a deeply human project, but also as an initiative demanding technical, scientific, and operational excellence. To achieve this, the company relied from the very beginning on a multidisciplinary team that has become one of its key differentiating assets.
The development of the Ailin project has been made possible by a combination of talent and strong institutional backing. Support from CDTI Innovación through the Neotec program—co-financed by the European Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (RRM) funds—has been crucial in transforming a disruptive idea into a robust, scalable technological solution aligned with the highest standards in healthcare.
At Ailin, a wide range of professional profiles coexist, and for the founder this multidisciplinarity is not an add-on, but the very essence of the project. “Our multidisciplinary team is not simply an advantage: it is the reason Ailin exists and why it works,” she states.
Thanks to this combination of expertise, the company has developed a laboratory testing service with self-sampling kits that breaks away from the traditional model. “Until now, the system imposed its timelines, its waits, and its availability on you. Self-sampling completely breaks that dynamic. For the first time, the healthcare system adapts to the person, not the other way around,” explains the CEO.
Innovation lies not only in the kit itself, but in the entire ecosystem surrounding it: “Behind it is an enormous amount of work in design, validation, standardization, and quality control to ensure that anyone can obtain a sample at home that a laboratory can analyze with complete reliability.”
This approach has a direct impact on both patients and the healthcare system. For individuals, it means autonomy, convenience, and immediate access to key health information. For the system, it means reduced burden from basic tests and a greater capacity to prioritize resources. “It’s a model of shared responsibility: people gain access and convenience, and the system gains efficiency and responsiveness.”
One of the project’s distinguishing elements is the incorporation of artificial intelligence as support for medical diagnosis. “AI does not replace the doctor; it is a tool that allows medicine to reach more people, faster, more clearly, and with greater impact,” Caruana emphasizes.
The model also integrates laboratory clinical data, contextual user information, and a generative engine trained in medical language, always under a layer of human validation. “Once that first draft is produced, human review always comes into play: a physician validates, adjusts, and contextualizes the information before it reaches the user,” she explains.
Support from CDTI has been decisive in accelerating these developments. “I’m not talking only about funding, but about the real capacity it has given us to speed up developments that, without this support, would have taken years to reach the market,” says the CEO. Thanks to this backing, Ailin has been able to strengthen its kits, integrate advanced artificial intelligence, and build a clinical and technological infrastructure ready to scale.
Beyond the tangible, Caruana highlights the symbolic value of institutional support. “In a sector as regulated and demanding as healthcare, CDTI’s backing is an enormous sign of legitimacy. It’s a seal that says this project is not only innovative, but also has a scientific foundation, technological capability, and vision.”
With the service already up and running and thousands of active users, Ailin now faces the challenge of scaling its model without losing rigor, quality, or closeness. The transition from initial development to large-scale deployment poses regulatory, operational, and cultural challenges, but the company feels ready to tackle them.
“Our next step is to make it work at a larger scale while maintaining the same level of rigor and closeness,” says Caruana. The key lies in integrating the self-sampling model as a natural complement to the traditional healthcare system, demonstrating its reliability and preventive value with evidence.
The impact on early disease detection is already a reality. “When you remove the obstacle of waiting lists and make prevention accessible to anyone, people get tested earlier and more frequently,” she explains. This makes it possible to identify metabolic, hormonal, or thyroid abnormalities at early stages, preventing future complications.
In the short to medium term, Ailin’s vision is clear: to become a comprehensive preventive health platform that accompanies people continuously. “I imagine an ecosystem where anyone can test themselves from home with complete reliability, understand their health clearly, and track its evolution over time,” Caruana says.
The roadmap includes expanding the number of biomarkers, achieving greater clinical depth, and developing increasingly predictive artificial intelligence. “I see an AI layer capable of detecting risks before they turn into problems,” she adds. All of this opens the door to new use cases, from population-wide prevention programs to chronic disease monitoring or collaborations with companies and insurers.
Although Spain has been the starting point, the company is already working on its international expansion. “The need we address has no borders. Prevention, access, and clarity in health are universal challenges,” says the CEO. Europe and the United States are emerging as priority markets, where self-sampling and digital health models are gaining traction.
Ultimately, Ailin’s vision is to contribute to a paradigm shift in how people relate to their health. “We aim to make access to lab tests stop being a privilege conditioned by waiting lists and become something as simple as opening an app, ordering a kit, and receiving a clear medical interpretation,” Caruana concludes.
With the momentum provided by CDTI, Ailin is moving toward that future with a solid technological proposition, a clear preventive vocation, and the conviction that innovation can improve people’s lives.
The Centre for the Development of Technology and Innovation (CDTI E.P.E.) is the innovation agency of Spain’s Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. Its objective is to promote technological innovation in the business sector. CDTI’s mission is to ensure that the Spanish business fabric generates and transforms scientific and technical knowledge into globally competitive, sustainable, and inclusive growth. In 2024, within the framework of a new strategic plan, CDTI provided more than €2.3 billion in support to Spanish companies and startups.
Image: Ailin self-sampling kit, designed to facilitate access to clinical tests from home with clinical rigor and technological support.
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