BiancaMed wishes to grow its partnership strategy and to that end is continuing to build world class commercial partnerships in the adult and child consumer and clinical market with leading health technology companies.

Partners
BiancaMed’s first product was a software analysis package for screening for sleep apnoea from ECG (cardiograms). By partnering with one of the world’s largest diagnostic cardiology companies (Spacelabs) we were able to get a product FDA (Federal Drugs Administration) approved and to market as part of an integrated diagnostic cardiology. Some of our forthcoming products are more stand-alone (e.g. a home monitoring device for measurement of sleep duration), in which case it may make sense for us to assume the complete product development and to partner only for sales and distribution reasons.

Speaking about the recent successes for BiancaMed, Dr Conor Heneghan, BiancaMed’s Chief Scientific Officer, said “Despite spending nearly one-third of our lives asleep, the role of sleep and sleep disorders in overall health is still relatively unknown. BiancaMed is focused on providing simple and accurate diagnostic tools which can facilitate increased understanding in the area of sleep and sleep disorders”

Speaking on SleepScreen, Dr Philip de Chazal, said “SleepScreen scans a patient’s night-time ECG recording for the evidence of sleep disordered breathing in just a few seconds. The same task for a sleep technologist analysing the signals recorded in a sleep laboratory test can often take an hour or two.”

The ECG is a useful signal to use, since it is familiar to cardiorespiratory clinicians and is already routinely gathered on an outpatient basis using a device called a 24-hour Holter ECG monitor.

Using BiancaMed’s apnoea detection system, a patient sleeps overnight at home and wears a Holter monitor (with three electrodes attached to his/her chest). The following morning, the overnight ECG signals are downloaded onto a PC for analysis using BiancaMed’s patented algorithm. The algorithm automatically identifies the occurrences of the brief interruptions of breathing. It also calculates the average number of breathing interruptions per hour, which provides a measure of the severity of the disease. By allowing the study to be performed at home, BiancaMed’s technology significantly reduces both the cost in detecting the disease and the waiting time for a study.

Management Partnerships
LifeScreen Apnea – ECG Based Sleep Apnoea Assessment
BiancaMed has licensed technology for ECG-based detection of sleep apnoea to a market leader in the industry, Del Mar Reynolds (DMR). The DMR system “LifeScreen Apnea” was CE marked in 2004, and FDA approved in January 2005. “LifeScreen Apnea” is targeted at cardiologists and general practitioners with an interest in apnoea.
Download LifeScreen Apnea brochure. Holter Oximetry Apnoea Assessment
BiancaMed has developed a combined ECG and oximetry (SpO2) software platform that runs on commercial Holter Oximetry units for assessment of overnight sleep recordings. This unit provides direct evidence of oxygen desaturation events. The unit is currently undergoing FDA and CE approval.
Atrial Fibrillation Auto-Triggered Cardiac Event Recorder
Cardiac event recorders are commonly used by cardiologists to diagnose highly intermittent cardiac arrhythmias, such as atrial fibrillation which occurs in up to 10% of the population in the over 70 age group.
These devices consist of a very small electronic recorder which is worn for up to 30 days. With many current systems, the patient must hit a button when they feel anything unusual occurring with their heart (or light headed). The limitation of this system is that many arrhythmias are asymptomatic, and that many events occur during sleep.
The solution is to place enough intelligence in the event recorder to automatically trigger when an interesting event is occurring. BiancaMed has developed and patented such an automated system to detect paroxysmal (intermittent) atrial fibrillation.
BiancaMed is a client company of the Enterprise Ireland High Potential Start Up business unit.
BiancaMed is a client company of DFJ ePlanet Ventures, a premier global venture capital firm.
BiancaMed is a client company of Invest Northern Ireland
BiancaMed is a member of the Continua Health Alliance, which is establishing a system of interoperable personal telehealth solutions.

BiancaMed has a history of working with world class partners:  The company has partnered with:
    * ResMed to promote the understanding of sleep-disordered breathing in the cardiology community.
    * Del Mar Reynolds to incorporate BiancaMed’s patented technology into the Del Mar Reynolds Holter analysis suite.
    * IBM in a remote monitoring CHF trial.

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