Next year digital health and big data analytics will come together to create more personalized care. OC’s ever-evolving healthcare industry will play a big part.
Data is increasingly patient-generated—think continuously monitoring data from patches and wearables—and patient-reported. Previously hard-to-obtain and unavailable data, such as meal and mood logging, are now available for analysis.
One company in on the push: Irvine-based Cercacor Laboratories Inc., which last month added an “emotional response scale” to its hemoglobin tracker, Ember. The noninvasive device monitors pulse rate variability for endurance athletes to help them better understand their response to training stress, exercise training cycles and overall performance.
The ability to better measure, aggregate and analyze these new data sets, in combination with clinical data, will help drive more precise drug treatment, as well as prevention and intervention.
2018 saw four local IPOs raising nearly $330 million combined.
The recent stock market drops and global market volatility have contributed to lowered IPO activity in the U.S. in the last two months of the year, down 66% compared to last year.
Continued sluggishness could keep other local medical device, drugmaker or other health-based firms from going public next year.
Company to Watch:
Edwards Lifesciences Corp.
It’s hard not to watch OC’s largest public company Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE: EW).
But for 2019, keep a close eye on Edwards’ digital health play. The Irvine-based heart valve maker is jumping into the world of artificial intelligence and machine learning via its growing critical care division.
The company received FDA approval in March for its hypotension predictive monitoring software that uses algorithms to analyze cardiovascular vital signs to predict potential hypotension in surgical patients.
The software was incorporated into Edwards’ hemodynamic, or blood flow, monitoring device Hemo- Sphere, which received FDA clearance this month.
The company plans to expand its hemodynamic monitoring capability into fluid management. It targets FDA approval for that algorithm next year and recently launched a 300-patient study.
Corporate Vice President of Critical Care Catherine Szyman said Edwards’ digital health platform is currently in the predictive analytics phase, where data is used to forecast potential events.
She said the goal is to move towards prescriptive analytics, enabling devices to provide recommendations on actions to take.
Person to Watch:
Michael Seres
11 Health and Technologies Ltd. Chief Executive Michael Seres, a winner of the Business Journal’s Innovator of the Year Award this year, is ditching monitor clips for actual “smart bags.”
The Irvine-based device maker developed an app-and-sensor platform used with ostomy bags, which are worn over the stoma to collect stool or urine. It wirelessly collects and sends real-time data to smart devices via Bluetooth, alerting patients how full their bags are so they can decide when to empty them.
The company’s latest iteration of its technology is the Alfred SmartBag, which it said “is the world’s first smart ostomy bag,” according to its website. The product includes more advanced monitoring features, including the ability to automatically track output level, detect flow rates to differentiate output type—liquid, solid or gas—look for blood in stool and monitor stoma temperature for infection.
Seres told the Business Journal that the company is seeking a $20 million Series B funding round that it hopes to close next year.
