Sticky-beaking on the cardiex website under media link, and...

Sticky-beaking on the cardiex website under media link, and found a link to this article....

CardieX Ltd (ASX:CDX) has big plans for its revolutionary cuffless blood pressure detection wearable technology to expand into medical markets and other sectors.

Chief executive officer Craig Cooper said the company’s 16-year history of engineering pulse waveforms led to the world-first technology.

He said: “No one to date has been able to solve one of the holy grails of medical technology, what’s known as cuffless blood pressure detection through a wearable sensor.

“No one’s been able to do it by sensor before.

“Without using any other device, you can use a sensor on your wrist to get an uncalibrated blood pressure reading.”

The technology models a pulse waveform through a photoplethysmogram (PPG) sensor, emitting a graph through which data features such as heart age, exercise capability and blood pressure can be extracted.

Medical markets

Cooper said that the company that achieved the wearable sensor opened themselves up to a $30 billion US market

He said: “This sensor can work across medical wards for general patient monitoring, and there’s a massive market for diabetes management around blood flow at the extremities.

“In terms of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM), that’s the 24-hour cardiovascular monitoring market which in the US is about a $3 billion market opportunity.

“Beyond that, there is the general consumer market for hypertension which is the largest (pre-COVID-19) contributor to population health disorders, stroke, heart attack etc.

“So, the ability to have a wearable monitor managing hypertension is a significant economic opportunity for us.

“It’s a very unique and specialised piece of medical data analysis which we believe we can take outside of the clinician and apply broadly across to a number of other sectors.”

Clinical partnerships

The company has a partnership with Blumio consisting a Co-Development Agreement (CDA) for the integration of CardieX’s algorithms and SphygmoCor® technology into the Blumio sensor, and an investment by CDX in Blumio for 7.5% of Blumio with a potential to increase to 10% based on the achievement of certain additional milestones.

Cooper said: “The co-development agreement relates to the radar-based senor that Blumio is developing for clinical applications.

“It’s a very unique sensor in that it uses a radar as opposed to a PPG sensor, both of them aim to measure post-transit time (PTT) which is basically a measurement of blood flow as it passes through the sensor or the radar.”

CardieX has a joint development agreement with Mobvoi.

Consumer opportunities

On the consumer side, CardieX is partnered with Mobvoi, Google’s in-country partner for its wearable OS platform in China.

The companies have a Joint Development Agreement (JDA) for the development of proprietary health technologies, applications, and features to be integrated into Mobvoi’s next generation of watches and smart devices.

Cooper said: “Our partnership with Mobvoi focuses on the use of the global standard in consumer sensor technology – the PPG sensor [used to detect blood volume changes in the microvascular bed of tissue].”

Sensor Development Kit

CardieX is also moving forward with the development of a CardieX Sensor Development Kit, incorporating a reference design for a PPG sensor together with the CardieX algorithms.

This would allow the company to license its proprietary technology platform to third-party device manufacturers such as Apple and Fitbit.

The potential rollout date has been estimated as April 2021.

Near-term goals

Cooper said: “The ability for us to extract that clinically relevant data features from a PPG sensor is really a world-first, so we’re looking at building on that in the next three to six months as we further develop our PPG sensor program.

“We’re also looking towards a sub-$200 device which will do exactly what our current technology does.

“We are now in the development phases of an FDA lodgement as a new application for this device by February next year, 2021.”

The company is part of a study with the Artery Society on the impact of arterial stiffness on COVID patients.

Long-term outlook

The company’s long term goal is to be positioned as a key provider of devices, technologies and digital solutions which will enable better management of global health disorders – particularly around cardiovascular health and hypertension.

Cooper said: “We see hypertension, cardiovascular disease, arterial disease, being on the radar more and more globally.

“Upwards of 100% of the severe COVID-19 cases that are now being presented and presenting with hypertension or arterial inflammation.

“The focus now is on the cardiovascular arena as a diagnostic and to that end, we had the first study announced last week with the Artery Society to determine the impact of arterial stiffness on COVID patients.

“So we aim to be a key part of that in terms of proving diagnostic devices to the clinical sector, as well as providing consumer wearables which will allow patients and individuals to also monitor their health on an ongoing 24-hour basis.”