At the time, Astek was building a companion app to help users torecordi and monitor symptoms. The initial concept relied on typing symptoms into a phone. For many people living with SCI, typing is difficult, slow, or not a feasible option.

The remark exposed an assumption about what users would physically be able to do. The team rebuilt the app around simpler interactions and several different ways to record a symptom. Mustafa describes the result as “totally reimagined,” with people living with SCI at the centre of the design—not as users to accommodate later, but as the first users the technology was designed for.

That comment pulled the team’s attention upstream, to what happens before someone reaches a clinic: recognizing symptoms, finding a test that helps, deciding whether this is the week to make the appointment. The team also heard about standing antibiotic prescriptions people rely on when a timely diagnosis is hard to get.

These insights led Astek to explore how its app could capture symptoms earlier and give patients meaningful information to bring into conversations with their clinicians. The team also developed a model designed to estimate the likelihood of recurrence within 30 days and filed a related patent application.

Together, these changes reflect a broader shift in how Astek approaches UTI care: not simply improving what happens at the point of diagnosis but exploring opportunities to support better-informed decisions earlier in the care journey.

The program also gave Astek room to examine how Jiddu moves toward clinical use. Mustafa points to conversations with a regulatory mentor as the most influential part.

Astek had initially been considering a model that would rely on a complex clinical laboratory pathway. As the team explored what that approach would require in practice, it began to see a more direct regulatory pathway through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That shift has helped shape the next phase of development, including plans for a 150-participant patient outcome study that will incorporate symptom tracking and participant feedback. Taken together, the three decisions were closely connected with product design, evidence generation, and regulatory planning kept pulling on each other.

Since completeling SCI Accelerator, Astek has built momentum. Mustafa shared that George Washington University has become a paying research customer for Astek’s cartridges and plans to publish findings from that work. The company has also opened a $15 million Series A financing round to support Jiddu’s path toward market entry.

Mustafa entered the program expecting investor exposure. What he got instead, and what he now says was worth more, was time with people living with SCI, clinicians, and other experts who helped the team identify the assumptions it could not see on its own.