Published last week on Switzer by Paul Dunn,Financial journalist and commentator on 3AW and Sky Business
mpediMed (IPD, 68 cents)
Market capitalisation: $257 million
Analysts’ consensus price target: $1.65 (Thomson Reuters)
ImpediMed is a highly promising medical device maker, which has a developed a range of products that use electric currents to measure a person’s fat mass, fat free mass, and fluid levels. The company’s unique BioImpedance Spectroscopy (BIS) technology uses multiple electrical frequencies to provide immediate and very accurate measurements of extracellular (internal) fluids, levels of body fat and muscle and other body composition and wellness measures.
ImpediMed originally developed its body fluid measurement device for lymphoedema (swelling), which opened up a use to help patients recovering from breast cancer – who become prone to fluid retention – and the full results from the PREVENT Trial, which started in 2014, of the BIS technology used in the prevention of breast cancer-related lymphoedema, will be very important for the company. But the technology has much broader applications: ImpediMed company built the BIS technology into a device it called SOZO, which it said was the world’s first digital health and wellness device capable of managing and monitoring a person’s fluid status, body composition and hydration in either a clinical, recreational and at-home setting.
Resembling a set of futuristic bathroom scales, SOZO measures fluid changes in the body, to give a detailed picture of health at a cellular level. The user places their hands and feet on the machine, and it gathers information on 256 measurements to work out the person’s state of health. Eight body sensors and four weight sensors measure body composition, fluid status and hydration. SOZO apps running on a smartphone or tablet then provide data to be used by individuals or doctors. The company is right in the middle of the ‘eHealth’ sweet spot, where the device can be used in hospitals, but also by an individual sending data to a doctor, as well as using it themselves simply to keep fit.
SOZO was launched in 2017 and soon made its first commercial sales in Europe and Australia – the company received CE Marking in June 2017, allowing sales in the European Union (EU) – with the first customers being large hospitals. SOZO had already been cleared by the FDA to be used in the clinical assessment of lymphedema in the US: in December, ImpediMed announced that the FDA had approved SOZO for monitoring patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). This brings SOZO into a market that is expected, according to research firm GlobalData, to balloon from US$3.2 billion in 2015 to US$11.8 billion by 2025.
ImpediMed is well funded, with a cash balance at 31 December 2017 of $42.4 million. As SOZO gains more market acceptance, and full trial results come in, the company looks well positioned for 2018.
