CortiCheck™ began as a patient-led effort to address a critical unmet need in adrenal insufficiency: the lack of timely, actionable cortisol information when decisions matter most.

People living with adrenal insufficiency do not produce enough cortisol, and some may produce little to none. Because of this, they rely on steroid replacement medicine to mimic normal cortisol function.

Today, there is no widely available way to measure real-time cortisol levels in the body during daily life. Patients and clinicians are often forced to make urgent decisions without timely cortisol data, especially during illness, injury, surgery, or other periods of stress.

CortiCheck™ was created from an urgent question: could better, timely cortisol information help patients and clinicians make more informed decisions and reduce the risk of life-threatening adrenal crisis?

When this fundraiser was first launched, the goal was to help move CortiCheck forward as quickly as possible toward development and validation planning.

As the work progressed, it became clear that the next phase required a more structured and responsible path than originally anticipated, including deeper research planning, validation strategy, stakeholder coordination, and clearer separation between patient-centered research convening and any future commercial development pathway.

Like many early-stage medical innovation efforts, progress has not been linear. Some expected pathways did not move at the pace hoped for, and parts of the work had to be slowed or re-scoped while the right research, legal, and organizational foundations were being put in place.

Rather than overstate progress or push forward without the right structure, we chose to move carefully and responsibly.

CortiCheck™ is now in a structured research and validation planning phase. No commercial device currently exists.

At this stage, the focus is on responsible research, stakeholder engagement, and evidence generation to determine whether improved cortisol monitoring can be validated in a way that meaningfully improves patient outcomes, including crisis prevention, emergency care use, and quality of life.

This includes ongoing work to build the right foundation for future progress, with clear boundaries between public-interest, patient-centered research activities and any future commercial pathway if the evidence supports moving forward.

Your support helps sustain this patient-led effort while this next phase of planning and evidence-building continues. Contributions may help support research planning, stakeholder coordination, outreach, operational costs, and other foundational activities needed to responsibly advance this work.

Thank you for supporting this mission and for staying with us through an honest, careful, and patient-centered process.

With gratitude,

Kirsten Norgaard

Founder, CortiCheck™