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Itamar Medical Acquires Technology and Assets of Spry Health
January 12, 2021
- Enables Itamar to leverage Spry’s existing FDA-cleared technology to bring to market the first device for continuous remote patient monitoring (RPM) of sleep apnea
- Adds the capability to monitor the longer-term accumulated disease burden of sleep apnea to complement the single night diagnostics commonly used today, including the Company’s existing WatchPAT™ device
- Paves the way for an end-to-end digital care pathway that can further expand Itamar’s presence in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) diagnostics and advance support for chronic cardiovascular and COPD disease management
- Provides market expansion opportunity in the growing home health monitoring solutions market and potentially leverage existing reimbursement codes for RPM to create new revenue opportunities and address a projected $2 billion market
- Delivers stream of continuous comprehensive patient bio-markers of sleep disorder patterns and their association with day-time physiological vital signs over time monitored in an easy to comply with watch-like device
Itamar Medical Ltd. (NASDAQ and TASE: ITMR), a leading medical device and digital health company focused on the integration of sleep apnea management into the cardiac patient care pathway, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire technology and assets of Spry Health for an undisclosed cash amount. Spry, based in the San Francisco Bay area, develops a wrist-based medical grade remote patient monitoring (RPM) solution.
“As we sought opportunities to build on our vision of expanding sleep apnea diagnostics from a single-night test to continuous remote patient monitoring, we identified the technology commercialized by Spry Health as a perfect fit,” said Gilad Glick, President and Chief Executive Officer of Itamar Medical. “The acquisition of their FDA-cleared, wrist-worn technology and the addition of a knowledgeable pool of selected talented engineers, led by Spry co-founder and CTO Elad Ferber, provides an excellent platform for us to jump start our development initiatives to bring to market a continuous sleep apnea monitoring device to further support chronic disease management, particularly as it contributes to the added burden on cardiovascular disease.
“While finger-based monitoring yields the highest accuracy, it is currently not suitable for longer-term wear. A device that is designed for the wrist, while potentially less accurate for precise disease diagnostics, is more suitable for monitoring the continuous accumulated burden of sleep apnea and its potential impact on other diseases, such as cardiovascular conditions, due to its wearability over weeks or months,” added Glick.
Spry’s patented technology is delivered through a watch-like home-based monitoring medical device called the Loop System. The Loop System is FDA-cleared and based on an extensive set of sensing technologies and algorithms that contextualize real-time, continuous physiologic data to flag signs of patient deterioration using bio-markers such as SpO2, respiration rate, and heart rate. These three signals, combined with Itamar’s core expertise in the Peripheral Arterial Tonometry (PAT®), form the foundation for continuous sleep apnea monitoring. Itamar anticipates commencing development of a new wrist-worn device immediately, with initial market launch timing anticipated in 2022.
The total global RPM market in 2019 was estimated to be approximately $800 million and expected to reach approximately $2 billion in 2027. North America represented the largest share of the global market at approximately 38%, primarily attributed to rising cardiovascular disease1.
“Sleep apnea is a serious and common respiratory disorder. Recent studies have shown that 50-80% of patients with cardiovascular disease including hypertension, stroke, atrial fibrillation and HF have significant sleep apnea – and patients with uncontrolled sleep apnea are more likely to have worse outcomes including uncontrolled hypertension, refractory afib and higher mortality. Enabling cardiac-based RPM programs in patients with CV disease will almost certainly be a game changer in helping us identify sleep apnea – and its burden – earlier in these patients and lead to better outcomes across the board,” said Dan Bensimhon, MD Medical Director Advanced Heart Failure & Mechanical Circulatory Support at Moses Cone Health.
“We also believe that pulmonologists, which are predominantly our current WatchPAT™ customers, will gain the added benefit of RPM in monitoring patients with overlap sleep-apnea/COPD syndrome, a condition that can increase death sevenfold2,” concluded Glick.
About Spry Health
Spry Health, incubated at Stanford-affiliated accelerator StartX, develops digital health solutions to transform how chronically-ill patients are treated, improve patient outcomes, and dramatically reduce healthcare costs. Founded in 2014 with a vision to transform health solutions, the company creates a new channel of information from high-risk patients through wearable technology. Spry Health provides health care organizations with analytics to allow for better care of their patients while they are at home, decrease hospital admissions, and reduce unnecessary spending. For more information visit www.SpryHealth.com.
About Itamar Medical Ltd.
Itamar Medical is a medical technology company focused on the development and commercialization of non-invasive medical devices and solutions to aid in the diagnosis of respiratory sleep disorders. Itamar Medical commercializes a digital healthcare platform to facilitate the continuum of care for effective sleep apnea management with a focus on the core sleep, cardiology and direct to consumer markets. Itamar Medical offers a Total Sleep Solution to help physicians provide comprehensive sleep apnea management in a variety of clinical environments to optimize patient care and reduce healthcare system costs. The Company’s key product, WatchPAT, is commercially available within major markets including the US, Japan, and Europe. Itamar Medical is a public company traded on the Nasdaq and on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchanges, and is based in Caesarea, Israel with U.S. headquarters based in Atlanta, GA. For additional information visit www.itamar-medical.com
See Full Press Release at the Source: Itamar Medical Acquires Technology and Assets of Spry Health Nasdaq:ITMR
Press Release by: Itamar Medical
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