Dylan Murray (SSE ’27) delivers the winning pitch for Exactics during April’s Pitch Friday Grand Prize Round.
Exactics, developer of an innovative rapid test for Lyme disease, took home the top prize of $15,000 in the Pitch Friday Competition’s Grand Prize Round. The competition, hosted by the Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, took place April 18.
Unlike traditional tests that rely on blood samples and take up to three weeks to detect infection, Exactics’ QuickLyme test delivers immediate results by analyzing the tick instead of the infected blood.
Dylan Murray (SSE ’27), co-founder and CEO of Exactics, says the product has applications beyond testing for Lyme disease. By swapping biomarkers, it can be adapted to test for other tickborne diseases like Rocky Mountain spotted fever and alpha-gal syndrome.
Competition judge Nina Balan, director of strategic initiatives at The Beach, UNO’s Research and Technology Park, said picking a winner wasn’t easy, but in the end Exactics stood out.
“They all had compelling stories and good data, so it was a difficult choice, but the fact that the Exactics team is already working in labs and doing testing on a scale level was persuasive,” she said. “They have a product that’s already deliverable in the market, and that made us want to continue to invest.”
