HeartSciences Awarded Patent for AI-Enabled Heart Disease Detection Tech

European patent administrators have granted Heart Test Laboratories Inc., a patent for its artificial intelligence (AI)-ECG technology designed to measure diastolic function.
 
Diastolic dysfunction (impaired cardiac relaxation) is a sensitive and crucial indicator of overall heart health, providing one of the earliest signs of heart disease, with onset typically occurring before symptoms. Diastolic dysfunction is caused by common issues that affect heart function or that produce hypertrophy. All patients with heart disease have diastolic dysfunction, in contrast to systolic dysfunction (reduced pumping of blood by the heart or reduced ejection fraction), which only affects a subset of patients and typically occurs at a more severe, often symptomatic, stage of heart disease.

“We are pleased to receive this latest patent grant which further reinforces our position at the forefront of AI-ECG,” HeartSciences CEO Andrew Simpson said. “This patent is particularly valuable because it covers the use of AI-ECG to produce any echo measure of diastolic function, which is fundamental to screen for a broad range of heart disease at an early stage.”
 
Diastolic function measurements currently must be assessed in a specialist cardiology environment, typically using echocardiography-based imaging. The ability to assess cardiac diastolic function using an ECG makes it a far more valuable cardiac screening tool, particularly in frontline or point-of-care clinical settings, according to the company.
 
“Millions of ECGs are performed worldwide every week, and the ECG is the most ubiquitous cardiac test. The addition of cardiac dysfunction detection to the ECG is expected to provide significant benefit to healthcare providers and health systems around the world. Cardiovascular disease accounts for an estimated 32% of all deaths worldwide and AI-ECG is set to play a significant role in heart health screening worldwide. In recent years, we have conscientiously built an extensive international intellectual property portfolio across major markets. These patents are expected to provide a significant competitive advantage and intrinsic corporate value as AI-ECG is set to drive significant growth in the ECG market to $25 billion per year by 2032¹,” Simpson stated.
 
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued eight utility patents and one design patent to HeartSciences, with patent expiration dates ranging from March 2031 through August 2040. HeartSciences also has 14 international design registrations and 20 international utility patents granted in jurisdictions such as China, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, and Australia, with expiration dates ranging from September 2036 through March 2037.  
 
Heart Test Laboratories Inc., d/b/a HeartSciences, is focused on applying AI-based technology to an ECG (also known as an EKG) to expand and improve an ECG’s clinical utility. Millions of ECGs are performed every week and the company’s objective is to improve healthcare by making it a more valuable cardiac screening tool, particularly in frontline or point-of-care clinical settings. HeartSciences has one of the largest libraries of AI-ECG algorithms and is developing AI-ECG solutions to be made available on either a hardware agnostic cloud-based platform or  its proprietary MyoVista wavECG device, to help identify cardiovascular disease in any care setting worldwide. HeartSciences’ first product candidate for U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance, the MyoVista wavECG, or the MyoVista, is a resting 12-lead ECG that is also designed to provide diagnostic information related to cardiac dysfunction which has traditionally only been available through the use of cardiac imaging. The MyoVista also provides conventional ECG information in the same test.

Reference
¹ Precedence Research 2023