From Sri Lanka to the Global Stage: Building AI MedTech That Detects Heart Disease Early

Editorial feature originally published on LSN News Spotlight (November 2026).

Most cardiovascular disease is discovered too late—after an arterial blockage forms, an emergency room visit, or an irreversible cardiac event. For biomedical engineer and entrepreneur Keerthi Kodithuwakku, the central conviction behind his life's work is straightforward: it does not have to be this way.

As Chairman and CEO of Jendo Innovations, Keerthi is spearheading a Sri Lankan deep-tech enterprise engineering non-invasive, AI-driven diagnostic instruments to evaluate vascular health long before clinical symptoms emerge. The narrative of Jendo is not a standard software startup story; it is a multi-year discipline that runs through MIT Global Startup Labs, the technology clusters of Trace Expert City in Colombo, multi-continental patent grants, clinical validation trials, and collegiate halls at the University of Oxford.

The clinical thesis: catching disease at the vessel lining

The human vascular system often displays subtle warning signals years before a heart attack or stroke occurs. The crucial physiological marker is endothelial dysfunction—a breakdown in the delicate inner cellular lining of blood vessels that regulates vascular tone, inflammation, and blood flow.

Jendo's proprietary medical device captures these early micro-vascular signals through an elegant combination of photoplethysmography (optical pulse diagnostics) and digital thermal monitoring recorded non-invasively from the patient's fingertips.

Paired with a proprietary cloud-based AI analytics engine, the system delivers an objective, actionable vascular health risk assessment in approximately fifteen minutes. Rather than reacting to established cardiovascular disease, clinicians and individuals are given a diagnostic window to intervene through lifestyle modifications, pharmacological therapies, and preventive protocols.

"Innovation matters most when it moves beyond the laboratory and creates a meaningful impact on people's lives."
— Keerthi Kodithuwakku

From university corridors to patents on three continents

The origin of Jendo traces back to an undergraduate engineering dialogue that refused to leave Keerthi alone. Recognizing that deep science innovations require rigorous patient capital and intellectual property protection, the early research bench was funded by prize money won across competitive national and regional startup challenges.

Medical technology in emerging markets faces a unique headwind: local capital frequently seeks short-term software plays with immediate monetization, whereas medical devices require meticulous clinical trials, Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) compliance, and complex regulatory clearances.

Keerthi committed to the harder path: securing robust, defensible global intellectual property early.

Leveraging the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), Jendo secured patents across three continents:

• United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO): Granted Patent 10,912,464 B2
• Japan Patent Office: Granted Patent P7045084
• National Intellectual Property Office of Sri Lanka: Granted national patents

Institutional backing followed. Venture capital firm Lanka Ventures stepped forward to finance Jendo's transition from bench prototype to pilot production and international regulatory pathways.

Recognition soon accelerated: Seedstars Colombo named Jendo a regional winner in 2017, and the British Computer Society honoured the company with national accolades at the BCS ICT Awards, followed by the prestigious CSSL ICT Leader of the Year.

Global representation: Oxford, WHO, and WIPO

In recent years, Keerthi's focus has expanded into international health policy, intellectual property strategy, and cross-border innovation diplomacy.

His academic and leadership honours include:

• Chevening CRISP Fellowship (2026): Selected for the Research, Science and Innovation Leadership Programme at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, examining sustainable technology transfer and ethical AI deployment in healthcare.
• Eisenhower Fellowships (2026): Appointed as an Eisenhower Fellow within the Innovative Entrepreneurs Program, representing Sri Lanka among global pioneers.
• WHO–ITU–WIPO Global Initiative on AI for Health (GI-AI4H): Active contributor and speaker across international working groups in Singapore and Hangzhou, addressing regulatory governance, clinical benchmarking, and the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence in public health frameworks.

Building the roadmap for the next generation of founders

Beyond laboratory research and clinical devices, Keerthi devotes substantial energy to building the institutional bridges Sri Lanka's innovation ecosystem historically lacked.

Through academic keynote lectures, university mentoring at institutions such as NIBM and the University of Moratuwa, and leadership in technology incubators, he advocates for formalized technology-transfer frameworks so emerging researchers do not have to invent both the scientific breakthrough and the commercial roadmap from scratch.

"My ambition is not only to build globally competitive technology from Sri Lanka, but also to help create an ecosystem where the next generation of innovators can succeed globally. We don’t lack good ideas; we simply need the systematic pathways to protect, fund, and scale them."

As Jendo Innovations continues its international clinical trials and commercial expansion, the story highlighted by LSN News affirms a vital precedent: world-class medical innovation, backed by hard science and defensible patents, can originate from emerging nations and scale to protect lives across the globe.

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Further Reading & Media

• LSN Spotlight Profile: Read the full editorial feature on LSN News.
• Featured Interview: Watch the spotlight video interview on YouTube.
• WIPO Global Health Feature: "Detecting Disease Before Diagnosis" on wipo.int.
• Jendo Innovations: Explore the technology at jendo.health and jendoinnovations.com.