A pair of Sudbury based biotech companies, specializing in wearable and portable health care devices, are the latest additions to the Health Sciences North Research Institute’s (HSNRI) facility on Walford Road.
Flosonics Medical is a biotech company that has already received international attention for their invention known as the Flopatch – a wireless and wearable sensor that uses ultrasound to monitor vital signs for critically ill patients. The Flopatch collects information on heart rate, pulse, blood flow and fluid levels of patients and then transfers that information to a smartphone app so that the patient can be monitored in real-time from anywhere on the planet.
“Imagine a patient who needed to be airlifted from a remote community on the James Bay Coast. If the nursing station in that community has the Flopatch, a critical care physician in Sudbury could be monitoring that patient as the helicopter is in transit. The doctor could be telling staff to do different things to help keep the patient stable and prevent their heart from stopping,” says Joe Eibl, CEO and co-founder of Flosonics Medical.
Verv Technology is a Sudbury start-up that’s developing breakthrough technology in home health monitoring. The company has developed a device that will allow a person to monitor a number of different health indicators all with a small drop of blood and a smart phone.
Home health monitoring has taken off in recent years as large companies like Apple, Samsung and Amazon have declared this the next major technology. While home monitoring devices for diabetes and high blood pressure have been around for many years, Verv’s technology is a game changer as it can do something that no other portable device can do – separate plasma from the blood sample using a very simple and inexpensive device.
“No more waiting in doctors’ offices, no more driving to the lab, or big needles drawing multiple vials of blood and waiting days for results,” says Verv President Jeff Sutton. “Our platform allows for multiple tests on one disposable cartridge that collects the blood and performs analysis that can be read within 15 minutes, all controlled by your smartphone.”
Verv will continue to work on the technology at HSNRI’s lab on Walford Road, with the hope of putting this device on the market in 2-3 years. Flosonics expects to have the Flopatch officially on the market in the coming months and already has potential customers lined up in the United States.
Partnering with Flosonics and Verv is important for HSN and HSNRI as the organizations strengthen their academic and research impact improve health outcomes for patients of Northeastern Ontario.