Dr. Sancy Leachman believes that the skin is the window to health. Leachman is the Chief Medical Officer for SkinBit, a new full-body scanning platform that recently raised $6 million to place full body skin scanners inside dermatology practices, med spas and longevity clinics.
SkinBit was created to increase the quality of routine skin exams. Leachman said that when dermatologists do a skin screening with the human eye, it doesn’t catch everything longitudinally. Having these full body scanners will give dermatologists a data-backed baseline prior to their visit.
“What we’re trying to do with SkinBit is to be able to use a machine to collect all those details and have it in a form where if you come back in the next three months or the next year or whenever, you can then compare very clearly because you’ve got the entire body basically photographed,” she said, adding that SkinBit offers high resolution full body scanner photos that are captured dermoscopically.
Leachman said that currently, the standard of care in most dermatology practices has the capability to do full body photography on a few people by sending them to a professional photographer to have it done, but it is very difficult to navigate and very expensive to have done. The only dermoscopic photos a patient might receive during a visit are the ones a doctor thinks might turn into something. With SkinBit, a dermatologist can look at the full body skin scanner photos and evaluate the photos over time and get a better sense of whether anything has changed because every single lesion will be documented. Leachman said that getting into a dermatologist for a visit is difficult and that the access problem is medical problem, because melanoma moves fast, and it is really important that a diagnosis is not delayed.
The SkinBit full body scanner has a bed where the patient lays down, face up first and the ring, that has high resolution camera, scans the body from the head to the feet. The client turns over and the ring scans the body from feet to head. An important disclaimer Leachman made is that it might not be able to see underneath the hair or right in between the toes. She said those limitations exist in most skin exams, the scanner can’t assess something it can’t see.
Leachman said that while wellness centers are doing whole body MRI’s, bloodwork and genetics, they aren’t performing skin exams. There has to be a dermatologist who comes into the wellness center to do that kind of exam, or the client has to go elsewhere to get that service done. Leachman said SkinBit is helping to augment what services are available at wellness centers.
The SkinBit images will be forwarded to a board-certified dermatologist who will read them and give a report. Leachman said that the sensitivity and specificity of detecting skin cancer by a dermatologist is better than with a primary care physician. She said that is why SkinBit has elected to use board-certified dermatologist to read the scans. SkinBit plans to open three clinics in California and Florida by the end of 2026 and they are on track for 15 locations by the end of 2027.
Leachman said there are so many things that can be discerned through the skin. She said there are ways autoimmune diseases and diabetes show up on the skin and signal what is going on internally. She said the skin is a visible organ that can herald the same pathologies in the internal parts of the body.
“Skin is the physical boundary between self and the world. Every individual’s representation of themselves is made primarily through their skin … the manifestations that happen through the skin have dramatically more impact on people and how they feel about their manifestation of self to the world,” she said, adding that what SkinBit is doing is imaging the true self.
