Seeing Inside the Body.
In Real Time.
The first continuous, real-time platform for non-invasive vascular monitoring — using light, not needles.
Who We Are
Avalyra is a biophotonics company with a singular focus: giving clinicians real-time visibility into what's happening inside the body during treatment.
Our platform is designed to use light — not blood draws, not model-based estimates — to continuously assess physiologic stability. It is designed around a direct physiologic signal, captured in real time, that the current standard of care has not been able to deliver.
We are starting in dialysis, where treatment instability drives billions in avoidable hospitalizations and contributes to significant patient harm every year. And we are building toward a platform that changes how instability is understood across critical care.
(Pronounced ah-vuh-LEER-uh)
From reactive to real-time
In dialysis, fluid removal is managed to a crash point. There is no way to directly observe what's happening inside the body in real time — so clinicians manage reactively, responding to instability after it has already begun.
Avalyra is designed to address that gap. Our platform is designed to offer continuous visibility into patient stability during treatment, giving clinicians earlier insight into changes as they unfold during a session.
light instead of needles
Concept rendering. Device not yet cleared for commercial use.A medical-grade laser is designed to read through the skin to capture changes in real time — continuously, non-invasively, and without removing a drop of blood.
The signal is captured in-vivo, directly from the body during treatment. Not estimated from a model. Not measured from blood drawn outside the body. A live, continuous physiologic signal that has not previously been available at the point of care — and that Avalyra is working to introduce.
This is what distinguishes Avalyra's approach from existing monitoring tools in dialysis today.
A System, not a Single Device:
Avalyra is built as a platform from the ground up — designed to compound in value with every patient, every treatment, every deployment.
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Live Monitoring
Designed to provide continuous, in-vivo capture of physiologic dynamics during treatment — a signal that has not previously existed at the point of care.
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Signal Intelligence
Every treatment session generates data. Over time, that data is designed to support models that surface physiologic patterns across a patient population.
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Clinical Integration
Equipment-agnostic and designed to layer into existing workflows — no rip-and-replace, no new infrastructure required.
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Future Automation
The long-term vision: Avalyra's signal integrated directly into dialysis equipment to support adaptive ultrafiltration control. A future state of data-guided care, driven by continuous physiologic data.
The Signal Is Validated.
The Pilot Is Underway.
Avalyra's core technology has been studied in IRB-approved human dialysis studies, with results indicating real-time observation of changes in live patients. The science is not theoretical. The signal has been observed.
Where we are today:
IP WHOLLY OWNED THREE GRANTED PATENTS AND ONE PCT, ACQUIRED FROM SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY. THE CORE BIOPHOTONIC ALGORITHM IS PROPRIETARY AND FULLY CONTROLLED BY AVALYRA.
HUMAN STUDIES COMPLETE SIGNAL CORRELATION WITH STANDARD LABORATORY BLOOD DRAWS OBSERVED IN IRB-APPROVED, IN-VIVO HUMAN DIALYSIS STUDIES CONDUCTED UNDER A PHASE II SBIR PROGRAM FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.
FDA PATHWAY IDENTIFIED THE DE NOVO PATHWAY WAS CONFIRMED AS THE APPROPRIATE REGULATORY PATHWAY FOR THIS DEVICE CATEGORY DURING THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SBIR PROGRAM UNDER WHICH THE UNDERLYING TECHNOLOGY WAS DEVELOPED. AVALYRA HAS ACQUIRED THAT IP AND IS PURSUING DE NOVO CLEARANCE.
CLINICAL PILOT UNDERWAY AVALYRA HAS INITIATED A 24-PATIENT PILOT STUDY WITH A NATIONAL DIALYSIS PROVIDER — THE COMPANY'S FIRST INDEPENDENTLY SPONSORED CLINICAL STUDY, CURRENTLY UNDERWAY IN THE U.S. THIS STUDY WILL GENERATE CLINICAL DATA AND CHARACTERIZE THE ECONOMIC MODEL IN SUPPORT OF DE NOVO CLEARANCE.
"The ability to see internal physiology in real time has the potential to fundamentally change how we manage fluid and patient stability.”
— Dr. Sriram Narsipur
Consulting Nephrologist, Avalyra Pilot Study. Member, Avalyra Scientific Advisory Board. Professor & Assistant Dean, Norton College of Medicine, Upstate Medical University
MEET OUR TEAM:
BUILT BY THE INVENTORS OF THE TECHNOLOGY.
LED FOR COMMERCIALIZATION.
Laura K. Orthwein
Founder & CEO
Laura Orthwein has spent 25 years doing the same thing in wildly different industries: entering complex, regulated systems, finding the inflection point, and building the commercial path that didn't exist before she got there. Pharmaceutical digital strategy, documentary film, ocean conservation, defense manufacturing — each a different domain, the same core capability. When she encountered the noninvasive biophotonics research being developed in the Chaiken Lab at Syracuse University, she recognized the pattern immediately. She got to know the science, got to know the scientists, and founded Avalyra to bring a new category of real-time physiologic monitoring to market.
PAUL DENT, PHD
Co-Founder
Core IP & Product Architecture
Paul Dent joined the Chaiken Lab as a graduate student in 2012, when the technology was still in early prototype form, and has been a core contributor to its development ever since. He holds a PhD in Chemistry from Syracuse University, spent seven years as a faculty member at St. Thomas Aquinas College, and returned full-time as the path to commercialization became clear. He is currently a Visiting Scholar and Adjunct Professor at Syracuse University and Co-Inventor of Avalyra’s patented biophotonic sensing platform.
JOSEPH CHAIKEN, PHD
Co-Founder
Inventor | Lead Scientist
Joseph Chaiken has spent more than four decades at the intersection of photonics, spectroscopy, and the human body. A Professor of Chemistry and Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Syracuse University — where he continues to lead the Chaiken Lab — he is the primary inventor of the biophotonic platform at the heart of Avalyra, the product of decades of DoD-funded research and a sustained conviction that light could reveal things about human physiology that conventional methods cannot. He is the reason this science exists, and the reason it works.
Insights
Where we're focused. Where the platform leads.
Visibility Into Fluid Balance During Dialysis
500,000+ patients. 89 million treatments per year. Currently managed without real-time, in-vivo visibility into physiologic stability.
Dialysis is Avalyra's first market, and the one we are executing in now. A 24-patient clinical pilot is underway, correlating our signal with clinical data and building the economic proof points that will drive enterprise adoption.
Future Focus
Trauma
Maternal Health
Military & Aerospace

