Heatherwick Studio has designed a health device, Early, a non-invasive, at-home urine test which measures people’s biomarkers from the comfort of their home.  

Biomarkers give people greater knowledge about their health and can indicate early signs of serious conditions. Ahead of Early’s launch in 2027, the waitlist is now open at know.earlyhealth.com/thestudio for those wanting to find out more and for early access. 

Too many serious diseases are identified too late, when opportunities for early intervention have been missed. One reason is that health screening often happens reactively rather than routinely, after symptoms appear. In hospitals and clinics, testing processes can be inconvenient, intimidating or inaccessible, which puts people off attending. 

Early’s co-founders D‑J Collins and Thomas Heatherwick have been driven to make health testing simpler, more accessible and better suited to real human behaviour – by bringing it into the home.

The device screens for biomarkers associated with diabetes, pre-diabetes, kidney disease, cardiovascular disease and some cancers of the urinary tract and bladder. It has been developed by a world-class team of scientists, engineers and designers, including Professor Mark Emberton,
Early’s Chief Medical Officer and the former Dean of Medical Sciences at University College London. 

Early combines advanced scientific research and electrochemical engineering with Heatherwick Studio’s interest in reducing friction through design. The studio designs at all scales, from city districts to handheld objects, in an effort to solve everyday problems and make the world around us better. With Early, we are applying our design thinking to one of society’s most important healthcare challenges. 

More information about the design and how the device works will be revealed in early August.