Angiomedix is scaling a diagnostic technology pioneered by Dr. Samit Shah, an interventional cardiologist at Yale New Haven Health, to close a widespread gap in how ischemic heart disease is diagnosed. In ischemic heart disease, the heart muscle doesn't get enough blood through the coronary vessels, damaging the myocardium and, left untreated, raising the risk of a heart attack—making early diagnosis critical.

The traditional catheterization procedure visualizes physical blockages from cholesterol plaque, the form most common in men. But up to 50% of patients, particularly women, may leave the hospital without a diagnosis because their coronary arteries look "normal." In women, ischemia is far more often caused by functional dysregulation of coronary vessel tone—temporary spasms that restrict blood flow without any visible plaque. These spasms are invisible on routine catheterization, so patients are discharged undiagnosed and untreated, at higher risk of a heart attack that earlier intervention could have prevented.

Dr. Shah developed and validated a functional test—in thousands of patients across several academic medical centers—that reveals a patient's propensity for coronary spasm. Performed at the end of a standard catheterization using a low dose of acetylcholine to provoke and visualize the spasm, it surfaces diagnoses that CT scans and stress tests miss. With a proper diagnosis, patients receive targeted treatment that rapidly alleviates symptoms and improves outcomes.

Angiomedix removes the barriers to wider adoption by packaging the procedure into a ready-to-use kit: an ultralow-dose acetylcholine solution and a proprietary slow-inject syringe for easier, safer delivery. This extends a test once confined to university hospitals to any catheterization lab in the U.S. and beyond—a practical example of personalized medicine with real, life-saving outcomes.

Samit Shah, MD, PhD is a 2025 recipient of the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale.