Precordior Awarded Funding to Develop Smartphone-Enabled Cardiac Disease Detector

EU funding will accelerate the development and global market entry preparation of the CardioSignal by Precordior product family to include detection of heart failure and coronary artery disease with built-in smartphone motion sensors, the new revolutionary smartphone-only technology.
 
The European Commission has awarded Precordior Ltd. funding of approximately 2 million euros for development, marketing, and go-to-market activities of the CardioSignal by Precordior product family over the next 24 months.
 
The funding is part of the EU’s Horizon 2020 Programme (Horizon 2020 SME Instrument Phase 2) that supports innovative small and medium-sized companies. The program offers Europe’s brightest and boldest entrepreneurs the chance to step forward and request funding for breakthrough ideas with the potential to create entirely new markets or revolutionize existing ones. The criteria for the funding are very tight, and less than five percent of Phase 2 applicants are awarded.
 
Smartphones Bring Diagnostics To Your Pocket
Precordior Ltd. provides unique and patent-protected technology for tomorrow’s fast and reliable heart disease analysis. The technology utilizes a smartphone and its built-in gyroscope and accelerometer sensors through an application. No additional devices are required. Research originating from 2011 has proven that measurement and analysis of a patient’s chest’s micro-movements and vibrations, namely Gyrocardiography, enables identification of cardiac diseases and conditions efficiently.
 
Precordior’s mobile application CardioSignal already has the detection capability for the most common cardiac arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation (AFib), and is a certified CE Class IIa medical device. Up to one-quarter of the population will suffer from AFib during their lifetime, and it’s the single most important cause for strokes. The detection of AFib with CardioSignal is in the core of Precordior’s mission – Your Life, Our Priority. Now, with this EU funding, Precordior will bring new detection capabilities to the market for increased heart health: the detection of Heart Failure and the detection of Coronary Artery Disease, using the same measurement method with a simple smartphone and its built-in motion sensors. The market entry for these revolutionizing new capabilities will take place in 2022.
 
A Revolution For Heart Disease Screening
Heart and cardiovascular diseases cause more than half of all deaths across the European Region.¹ The impact of introducing a fast and reliable smartphone-only cardiac screening solution to the market may prove to be monumental, as 80 percent of premature heart diseases and strokes are preventable.¹ Today, heart failure and coronary artery disease are both typically diagnosed by cardiac specialists with methods that are poorly scalable, costly, may require invasive treatments, and might expose patients to radiation. A fast and easy smartphone-only screening solution can bring notable efficiency and savings for treating the right patients the right way from the very beginning. Moreover, Precordior’s technology enables monitoring heart failure patients non-invasively, in everyday life at home.
 
CardioSignal, the smartphone application by Precordior, acts as a measurement device that records heart movement using the built-in motion sensors. The sensor data is sent for analysis to the CardioSignal cloud service. This enables scalable technology with virtually infinite possibilities to introduce cardiac detection and monitoring capabilities for any telehealth, digital therapy, and self-monitoring solutions in the future—a true point-of-care solution in heart diseases.
 
Precordior CEO Juuso Blomster, M.D., Ph.D., said:  “EU funding significantly accelerates Precordior’s product development and also enables us to increase marketing investments for CardioSignal by Precordior. The awarding of this highly sought-after and hard-to-win funding to Precordior is a clear sign that also external experts share our belief that our smartphone-based solution is indeed a major health tech innovation with significant growth potential. We are gratified that the importance of CardioSignal by Precordior has now also been recognized by the EU. This funding is a concrete step on our road to secure the necessary resources to fulfill Precordior’s growth vision.”
 
When addressing the impact on healthcare, Dr. Blomster added:  “Currently in heart diseases, healthcare essentially focuses on treating complications, such as myocardial infarctions (heart attacks), heart failure events and stroke. This is imperative, of course, but optimally we could detect these diseases prior to these complications occur. The problem is that these diseases are often only mildly symptomatic or even asymptomatic before the event occurs. With CardioSignal by Precordior, we can change this—early detection leads to prevention. We envision fewer complications, healthier and better quality of life for all.”
 
The funding enables Precordior to increase its product development and marketing investments and resources significantly and to meet market and customer needs even better. Precordior Ltd. will immediately start recruiting to strengthen its team.

Reference 
¹  http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/noncommunicable-diseases/cardi…