two new trademarks issued, page-11

older article, but neatly sums up the notion that the smartphone strategy takes a lot of the cost out of the business model that old management was pursuing. new strategy, new opportunity to make the innovative tech work.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/an-app-a-day-may-be-better-than-an-apple/story-fn7j19iv-1226215538201

THE smartphone is fast becoming a ubiquitous device, with 500 million sold every year and a billion sales expected by 2015.

Which is a very big opportunity that the renamed iSonea has grabbed as a way of monetising its extensive expertise in monitoring asthma.

"We are effectively a monitoring, algorithm and software based company," explained chief executive Michael Thomas.

"Compared to the traditional medical device model of having a distributor in every country, the idea of selling your expertise as an application in Apple's iStore or in the Android or Blackberry market is absolutely compelling."

The idea is that a small bluetooth device can be attached to the asthmatic while the smartphone monitors their wheezing and breathing patterns overnight.

Potentially, those results could be uploaded to a doctor and stored on the cloud along with date and time stamps and even GPS positioning if required, producing an exceptional diagnostic tool.

There is even an opportunity for predictive functions using databases of pollen or allergy counts or the time of year or location of previous asthma attacks.

"If you had to replicate what a smartphone can do in a purpose-built medical device, you could never make it for many multiples of what a smartphone costs," said Michael.

Customers are also very keen to download health management applications, with nearly a third of all adults in the US grabbing a health app in 2011.

ISonea was formed out of KarmelSonix in June this year with a new management team aiming to quickly commercialise the significant asthma management intellectual property in the company.

Since then costs have been slashed, a rights issue to raise $4.3 million launched and an over the counter listing in the US will start trading from January 2.

The company will press ahead with development of its three devices, a personal instant wheezeometer, a nocturnal asthma monitor and a continual monitor to be used in a lab or hospital.

But if it can get first mover advantage in the smartphone application market, that should provide early revenue and brand recognition to create demand. A speculative buy of the high risk/ high reward variety.