Record-keeping now takes 0.7% of the working day. Month-end close fell from 80 hours to 1 hour 34 minutes. The lab saves more than 1,000 hours a year. Oyster Lab OS is the first product built on Oyster Platform.
TOKYO, September 17, 2026 - Craif Inc., a bio-AI company developing a urine analysis platform for early detection of cancer and other diseases, today began offering Oyster Lab OS, a laboratory operating system the company built inside its own registered clinical laboratory and ran there for years before offering it to anyone else. In that lab, record-keeping accounts for 0.7% of the working day, an average of 3.1 minutes out of roughly seven hours of testing. Record accuracy runs at 99.98%. Month-end close fell by more than 98%, from 80 hours to 1 hour 34 minutes. Taken together, the changes save more than 1,000 hours a year compared to how the lab worked before the system.
Craif is a bio-AI company founded in 2018 that develops non-invasive cancer risk testing from urinary microRNA, the molecule class recognized by the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. It runs its own registered clinical laboratory in Japan, Craif Chubu Testing Center, which is where Oyster Lab OS was built and proven. Oyster Lab OS is the first product released on Oyster Platform, Craif's development platform for the AI era.
What the system has delivered in Craif's own lab
- Record-keeping: 0.7% of daily work, averaging 3.1 minutes out of roughly seven hours of testing.
- Record accuracy: 99.98%.
- Month-end close: down more than 98%, from 80 hours to 1 hour 34 minutes.
- Total time saved: more than 1,000 hours a year compared with operations before the system.
- External audits: about 180 check items, zero findings, five consecutive years.
Throughput
Samples processed per technician went from 121 to 631, about 5.2 times, over roughly two and a half years starting at the end of 2023. Craif attributes that increase to several things at once, including changes to testing processes and to equipment, not to the system by itself. The company's position is narrower and more useful: as sample volume climbed sharply, Oyster Lab OS was the foundation that let the lab keep running steadily.
Why Craif built it
Craif stood up Craif Chubu Testing Center from nothing in December 2021 to run its miSignal at-home cancer risk test. By law, a registered clinical laboratory in Japan must do more than test. It has to write and control standard operating procedures, keep daily work logs covering every step from sample receipt to result return, and maintain management ledgers for reagents and instruments. At the start, Craif did all of that on paper.
With a small team, that did not hold. In September 2022, the company decided to build its own system. Engineers worked on site in the lab alongside the technicians, and by 2024 every major lab operation was running on the system.
The system was built to support Craif's own growth, and external release was not the plan. That changed after visitors came through Craif Chubu Testing Center. Medical institutions and companies running testing and research operations saw the system working in a live lab and asked for the same system in their own facilities. Craif concluded that a system built for its own problem would be worth the same to labs with the same problem, and decided to offer it.
What Oyster Lab OS does
Oyster Lab OS is built on three commitments.
First, work doesn't stall. The system handles the record-keeping that quality control requires and flags problems before they halt testing, such as a reagent running low or an instrument inspection coming due.
Second, quality is protected by design, not by individual vigilance. Instead of relying on a careful technician to catch mistakes, the system blocks them outright: an expired reagent can't be used, and a procedure can't be skipped. Permission-based controls and real-time alerts on anomalies and deviations stop errors before they happen.
Third, every action is traceable on demand. The system automatically records who did what, when, and what changed, so during an audit or complaint investigation the full record is available immediately, with no need to cross-check separate logs.
Standard modules plus custom development
Oyster Lab OS ships as a combination of standard modules and custom development. The work that underpins quality is covered by standard modules. Custom development handles site-specific processes, testing and research, and the two are connected into one system. The approach is to keep what a lab is already good at rather than reshape the lab around the software.
Key features
- One-time entry: a single entry or action generates the required ledgers and work logs automatically.
- State management: current status of reagents, instruments, people and documents.
- Alerts: advance notice of status changes and expiry dates.
- Workflow: automatic handoff to the next task along a defined process.
- Rule enforcement: the system blocks operations and process steps that do not meet the required conditions.
- Permission control: operations restricted by the permissions a user holds.
- Audit trail and traceability: a history of who did what and when.
- Central management and immediate output: search across records, documents and history, and produce forms on demand.
Availability
- Name: Oyster Lab OS (Oyster Lab Operating System)
- Available: September 17, 2026
- Who it is for: labs doing testing and research work, including registered clinical laboratories, medical institutions, and corporate research and testing departments
- What is included: standard modules for reagent management, instrument management and document management, plus custom development and implementation support matched to each lab's testing and research work
- Pricing: an initial implementation fee plus a monthly fee
- Delivery: Forward Deployed Engineers learn the lab's operations and stay with the customer from design and development through implementation
- Website: https://oyster-platform.com/lab-os
- Inquiries about Oyster Lab OS: contact-oyster@craif.com
About Oyster Platform
Oyster Platform is a development platform for the AI era, built by Craif. Users build applications with the AI agent they already work in and publish and operate them worldwide at the press of a button. The infrastructure sits on a single platform, so users can build and release any number of applications without standing up a separate environment for each one. Data from every application accumulates in one database, and the more applications there are, the more the AI has to work with. Craif runs its own purchasing, CRM, support desk and testing operations on the platform and treats it as the foundation of its business growth. Early access applications for the beta are open now in Japan.
Website: https://oyster-platform.com
About miSignal Scan
miSignal Scan extracts microRNA from urine and analyzes it with AI to assess risk for ten cancer types, including pancreatic cancer, by cancer type and from stage 1. The test requires only a urine sample and places no physical burden on the patient.
Ovarian and breast cancer are assessed for women only. Prostate cancer is assessed for men only.
More information: https://misignal.jp/
miSignal Scan is not a medical device. It determines risk through statistical calculations based on analyzed information. It is not a substitute for a medical diagnosis of whether a person has cancer, and a low-risk result does not mean that cancer is absent or that the person will not develop cancer in the future.
About Craif
Craif is a bio-AI company founded in 2018 that develops non-invasive tests for the early detection of cancer. Its platform combines proprietary biomarker detection from urine and other bodily fluids with AI to assess disease risk. Building on one of the world's largest urine datasets, Craif aims to create a urine analysis platform that detects a wide range of diseases early, with cancer as the first step. The company is based in Tokyo and operates a wholly owned laboratory in San Diego, opened in 2026. Learn more at craif.com
Media inquiries
press_us@craif.com
