TimeTeller's saliva test maps your circadian clock
Original: TimeTeller puts our internal clocks at the center of personalized medicine
Why This Matters
Circadian-based medicine could change how cancer therapy is dosed and scheduled.
German startup TimeTeller offers a direct-to-consumer saliva kit to measure individual circadian rhythms, targeting longevity clinics now while pursuing clinical studies on cancer treatment timing.
Founded by physicist-biologist Angela Relógio — whose surname literally means 'clock' in Portuguese — TimeTeller spun out of Berlin's Charité university hospital and is now based at Medical School Hamburg. The startup's core product is a saliva test kit that profiles a person's internal circadian rhythm. Relógio spent years in oncology and systems medicine research before self-funding the startup's first patent, driven by one observation: cancer patients were dropping treatment due to side effects she believed were partly a timing problem, not just a drug problem.
The company operates on two tracks. Its direct-to-consumer kit, currently ordered mainly by longevity clinics, offers personalized guidance on sleep, nutrition, light exposure, and activity. The longer-term mission is clinical: determining the optimal window for each patient to receive specific cancer treatments, with the goal of reducing side effects and improving outcomes. 'That is something we need to calculate for every single medicine; we do that in the context of clinical studies,' Relógio told TechCrunch.
The team of 10 has a safety net — Medical School Hamburg provided both patient access and a funding backstop, including fallback employment. Co-founder Benjamin Dose, a biochemist and market access specialist, helped the startup land a partnership with Techniker Krankenkasse, Germany's largest public health insurer.