Smartphone Tech Meets Personalized Medicine: Everist CardioDefender
ANN ARBOR -- Everist Genomics announced Friday that its executive vice chairman, Alex Charlton, will speak about its breakthrough CardioDefender Device at the Wearable Technologies Conference Monday in Munich, Germany.
Smartphone healthcare applications are graduating from novelty items to mainstream medicine, helping physicians to save lives and reduce the cost of care.
Everist Genomics, a rapidly growing personalized medicine company, is successfully integrating smartphone and tablet computer technology with innovative, medically important diagnostics and prognostics in the areas of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer.
Everist Genomics' CardioDefender is the world's first FDA-approved and CE mark-registered smartphone ECG system to provide physicians and patients with hospital-quality heart rhythm monitoring outside of the hospital setting.
CardioDefender incorporates several unique capabilities enabling physicians to diagnose and treat potentially life-threatening heart arrhythmias that might otherwise be missed.
CardioDefender is the first system to deliver mobile, real-time, beat-by-beat, and quantitative heart monitoring and automated reporting by combining patented analytical smartphone software with a Wi-Fi device and electrodes.
"The essence of personalized medicine is to diagnose a problem before there are noticeable symptoms," Charlton said. "Physicians who diagnose and treat heart arrhythmias have been hampered for many years by legacy technology, such as hospital based ECG systems which confine patients to the high-cost hospital setting and Holter monitors which do not provide the comprehensive monitoring needed to detect potentially life threatening arrhythmias. For the first time, CardioDefender enables smartphone-based hospital-quality ECG monitoring of patients 24 hours per day, seven days per week."
The company's recently announced commercialization plans of CardioDefender coincide with reports from various industry sources projecting significant growth in remote patient monitoring. According to analyst firm Berg Insight, for example, around 2.2 million patients worldwide were using home monitoring service based on equipment with integrated connectivity at the end of 2011 -- cardiac arrhythmia was cited as one of the most common conditions monitored by these technologies.
Following FDA approval and European CE Mark registration last year, CardioDefender has already been deployed at more than 150 medical facilities in the United States for post-approval commercial evaluation. Between January and October of 2011, the number of patient days of heart rhythm monitoring performed with CardioDefender grew from fewer than 5,000 to more than 18,000 patient days per month. Since the system was introduced, Everist Genomics has received inquiries about the product from more than 32 countries, including China, India and the United States.
Everist Genomics launched its first product last year with the introduction of OncoDefender-CRC, a prognostic test for predicting the risk of disease recurrence for early stage colorectal cancer patients. The company expanded its pipeline with the creation of a new franchise of diagnostic and prognostic tests aimed at melding personalized medicine with mobile health platforms.
In addition to the CardioDefender diagnostic system, Everist Genomics recently announced development of AngioDefender, the world's first tablet computer device capable of accurately diagnosing atherosclerosis in asymptomatic patients. The company is developing mobile applications for the AngioDefender system to extend physician access to vital patient information and provide clinical support for treatment planning. The company plans to launch the AngioDefender system in February 2012.
More at www.everistgenomics.com.
