time to flick the switch

THERE comes a time in the evolution of all companies when they finally have to flick the switch to vaudeville and start selling.

That time has finally arrived for medical technology company iSonea which has just launched its AirSonea asthma monitoring product in Australia.

Olympian and asthmatic Cathy Freeman is on board to enthusiastically endorse the product but the acid test is whether parents — and predominantly mothers — will fork out the $169.95 for a portable electronic stethoscope which through the wonders of bluetooth, smartphones and an application will keep a close watch on wheezing and other breath sounds.

After two years of hard work chief executive Michael Thomas is confident that the device will sell well, although he concedes the path to profitability will be a longer one.

The aim is to leverage iSonea’s proprietary cloud-based algorithm which will interpret and compare the breath sounds until AirSonea becomes a significant mobile health device that dominates the asthma market.

By making the data accessible by parents or users, the idea is that they will be empowered to better manage their asthma as well as having a useful diagnostic tool for their doctor.

Just like Apple’s map program, the more data that feeds in, the better AirSonea should get with the eventual aim being to predict individual’s asthma attacks before they even happen, warning users when they are approaching a dangerous time of high pollen counts or other seasonal triggers as suggested by their personal history.

“We have had a great reaction from parents who really want to better monitor their child’s asthma and medication,’’ said Michael.

“We strongly believe that mobile health is the future for medicine and asthma is the ideal start because so much of the data is so subjective and incomplete.’’

Australia is a useful test market with 2.3 million asthma sufferers of which around 700,000 are immediate AirSonea targets.

However, the next big target is the US which has 25 million people with asthma with Europe after that.

iSonea shares have rallied strongly since our first speculative buy recommendation but big backers such as pub and pokies billionaire Bruce Mathieson are keeping the faith, so the call remains

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/in-the-black/time-to-flick-the-switch/story-fni0d787-1226726512824