Meet 20 companies innovating in the cardiovascular space
Blog written by Jessica Hobbis
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are a group of disorders involving blood vessels and the heart. CVDs are the leading cause of death globally, representing roughly a third of global deaths.
A rise in CVDs has been linked with Covid-19, with a study published by the journal PLOS Medicine finding that Covid-19 was associated with a six-fold increase in cardiovascular diagnoses. However, this raised risk was found to return to baseline levels 12 weeks to a year later.
With 80% of premature heart disease and stroke deemed to be preventable, there is huge scope for companies in the cardiovascular space to make an impact. Therefore, we have collected some of the leaders in this space in line with our FemTech Untapped event. Yet it must be noted that this is not an all-encompassing list and there are many more great companies out there!
1. OxiWear
OxiWear was invented and founded by Shavini Fernando in 2019 after being diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension (PH) due to Eisenmenger’s Syndrome. OxiWear is a stylish ear-wearable that continuously monitors your oxygen levels throughout the day and provides low oxygen alerting. This improves lives by instilling confidence and increasing security. Fernando’s invention has received a variety of accolades, including awards from the Leonsis Foundation, CitiVentures, and Georgetown University, which presented her with the Exceptional Master’s StudentAward in 2019. Fernando was also the recipient of the DC FemTech Award in 2019, recognising her as one of the 49 most influential individuals in Code, Data, and Design.
2. Bloomer Tech
Bloomer Tech’s vision is to be at the forefront of solving major women's global health issues; using integrated healthcare practices in monitoring and treatment to accelerate progress on solving global cardiovascular health problems. Bloomer Tech starts by tracking elements of cardiovascular disease, providing the tools to build a reliable and vast data set on women’s heart health. Using biometric sensors in everyday clothing, meaningful data is collected, analysed, and made accessible to users, doctors, and medical professionals for real-time personalized healthcare. This technology is seamlessly embedded into women’s bras to read metrics such as the electrocardiogram, pulse rate, respiratory rate, heart rhythm, and more.
3. CVS Health
CVS Health is the leading health solutions company, delivering care as no one else can. They reach more people and improve the health of communities across America through their local presence, digital channels, and over 300,000 dedicated colleagues – including more than 40,000 physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and nurse practitioners. Wherever and whenever people need us, CVS Health helps them with their health – whether managing chronic diseases, staying compliant with their medications, or accessing affordable health and wellness services in the most convenient ways. They help people navigate the health care system – and their personal health care – by improving access, lowering costs, and being a trusted partner for every meaningful health moment.
DiA Imaging Analysis is the world’s leading provider of advanced AI-based solutions for ultrasound analysis, making the use and analysis of ultrasound images smarter, faster, and more accessible.
DiA Imaging Analysis was founded by Dr. Noah Liel, Michal Yaacobi, Hila Goldman-Aslan, and Arnon Tousssia-Cohen who saw how ultrasound analysis was done by then – manually and visually. This means the process is subjective, time-consuming, error-prone, cumbersome, and highly dependent on the user’s experience. Therefore, the company's LVivo product line for cardiac and abdominal automated analysis allows clinicians with various levels of ultrasound experience to use and analyse ultrasound images on their ultrasound devices or healthcare IT systems with increased speed, efficiency, and accuracy. DiA’s AI auto solutions use advanced pattern recognition, deep learning, and machine learning algorithms to automatically imitate the way the human eye identifies borders and motion.
5. Mawi
Mawi Heart is a digital health company that revolutionizes the way we diagnose, react and prevent the three largest causes of death in the world: heart failures, heart attacks, and strokes. They create wearable medical devices and technology to diagnose and monitor cardiac diseases; combining the power of AI and wearables. Its mission is to make heart data accessible to each person and to prevent the heart’s “silent killers”. They aim to change the Remote Patient Monitoring paradigm, providing Healthcare professionals with the ability to track their patients continuously. By collecting all the main vital signs, Mawi helps physicians receive a full picture of a patient's health instead of snapshots from a visit to visit.
6. Abbott
Abbott is a global healthcare leader that helps people live more fully at all stages of life. They focus on innovative technologies that can improve the way clinicians treat people with vascular diseases, irregular heartbeats, and diseases of the heart's valves and other structures. Conditions they treat include; cardiac arrhythmia, coronary artery disease, heart failure, and heart valve disease.
7. Idoven
Idoven is a health technology company advancing early detection and precision medicine for cardiovascular diseases. Idoven has developed the world’s first cardiology-as-a-service platform powered by artificial intelligence that augments a clinician’s ability to identify, triage, and diagnose patients at scale. Their powerful proprietary AI software leverages electrocardiogram (ECG) data, of any duration and from any device, to improve the accuracy and consistency of ECG interpretation. These are also being applied to develop disease biomarkers for patient identification, risk stratification, and prognosis, as well as drug cardiac safety monitoring.
Idoven has been awarded with numerous distinctions for its AI technology in Europe and the US, including the prestigious European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator and Horizon 2020 (H2020) awards and the Healthy Longevity Catalyst Award from the US National Academy of Medicine. The company is backed by top-tier investors including Insight Partners, Northzone and Wayra (Telefónica), the Accel Starters programme, leading business angels, and EIT Health.
Myocarditis is marked by inflammation and damage to the heart, attacking otherwise healthy people. Several thousand are diagnosed with myocarditis each year in the US, with 15-20% of sudden deaths being due to this. The Myocarditis Foundation is dedicated to providing accurate and up-to-date information to medical professionals, patients, and their families, and to the scientific advancement of both the diagnosis and treatment of the disease with the goal of saving more lives.
9. CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young)
Every week in the UK at least 12 young people die of undiagnosed heart conditions. Since its formation in 1995, Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) has been working to reduce the frequency of young sudden cardiac death (YSCD). CRY supports young people diagnosed with potentially life-threatening cardiac conditions and offers bereavement support to families affected by YSCD. CRY promotes and develops heart screening programmes and funds medical research, with the belief that all young people should have the choice to be tested. The charity also publishes and distributes medical information written by leading cardiologists to the general public. CRY funds specialist referral, screening, and cardiac pathology services at leading UK hospitals.
10. Moving Analytics
Moving Analytics provides intuitive, turnkey, home-based post-acute care management solutions for cardiopulmonary disease. This improves patient outcomes, reduces readmissions, and empowers the effective and efficient delivery of quality care to patients based on 30+ years of research in remote disease management from Stanford University. Moving Analytics is the leading telehealth provider of cardiovascular prevention programs. Their first product Movn is an end-to-end, integrated program to deliver remote and virtual cardiac rehab.
11. CardioVisual
CardioVisual is a health educational app that was created by US cardiologists. It provides a library of trusted, concise, and shareable videos of cardiovascular, diabetes, heart health, and wellness information. CardioVisual was awarded the 2018 and 2019 ‘Best App for Heart Disease” by Healthline Media. CardioVisual delivers over 400 high-quality, clinician-curated, and created videos (in English and Spanish) and infographics that provide simplified, relevant, and comprehensive information about all aspects of heart and vascular disease and diabetes along with their therapies, prevention, and procedures. CardioVisual is regularly updated with new information and features based on active feedback from clinicians and consumers.
12. PocDoc
PocDoc is an early-stage digital health company and healthcare provider that combines rapid testing with a digital platform via the PocDoc app. While PocDoc can be used to test for COVID-19, its primary focus is on blood tests for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The PocDoc® digital platform has been developed with the vision of allowing anyone with a smartphone or tablet to test themselves for a range of major diseases and conditions via a fingerprick, receive a full health assessment that puts those results in context, and then be offered solutions to address any health-related issues that arise within the PocDoc app.
Currently, their product line-up consists of their Lipid Test, but they have plans to introduce more rapid test solutions for diabetes, kidney and liver disease, and female health. The PocDoc® platform is also able to integrate with other existing rapid tests, digitising the results and providing a health assessment. This allows them to offer healthcare organisations, employers, and individuals a complete service and address major global health issues, across all disease and condition types.
13. Spire Health
Spire’s Remote Patient Monitoring service pairs revolutionary respiratory sensing technology with licensed medical staff to identify changes in patient health and intervene. Its mission is to harness the power of algorithms and sensors to improve health outcomes by empowering patients and physicians with useful and actionable data. Spire Health currently works with partners across a range of health conditions, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), congestive heart failure, asthma, sleep disorders, and anxiety. To date their sensors have been worn by more than 150,000 people.
14. Cardiacminds
Cardiacminds is the next-gen start-up founded by experienced and skilled professionals in the field of Cardiac rhythm monitoring services. Its mission is to provide quality and cost-effective cardiac rhythm interpretations worldwide. Cardiacminds are experts in remote ECG/EKG monitoring and deliver reliable and quality reports for physicians, clinics, and IDTFs across the globe. Cardiacminds services include Holter scanning and reporting services, cardiac event monitoring services, and Mobile cardiac telemetry services.
15. Eko
Eko’s mission is to ensure all patients have access to early cardiac and pulmonary disease detection and high-quality care that improves and extends their lives. They are dedicated to providing healthcare professionals with industry-leading digital tools to hear and understand their patients’ hearts and lungs; allowing them to detect with higher accuracy, diagnose with more confidence, manage treatment effectively, and ultimately give their patients the best care possible. With more than half of clinically significant valvular heart disease being missed, Eko’s FDA-cleared platform is the first and only to identify structural murmurs with a smart stethoscope. Their Eko Murmur Analysis Software algorithm doubles heart murmur detection sensitivity as compared to general practitioners (GPs) using traditional stethoscopes.
16. Ultromics
Hundreds of AI systems exist that have the potential to facilitate more efficient and precise care. Ultromics’ AI goes one step further by predicting disease and patient outcomes. Early diagnosis supported by stress echocardiography (SE) can be lifesaving, but detecting the disease is difficult due to a complex web of symptoms and features making it difficult to spot on the initial visit. The traditional method of identifying abnormalities “by eye” requires a high degree of expertise and training. Experts disagree on approximately 10% of cases, which means it suffers from more inter- and intra-observer variability. Ultromics combine AI with stress echocardiography to detect earlier signs of coronary artery disease. Its EchoGo Pro is clinically proven to provide 10% more sensitivity compared to manual reads, with accuracy far greater than nuclear perfusion imaging – representing a more accurate, safer, accessible, and low-cost way of testing.
17. Sky Labs
Fashionable, discreet, and stylish, the CART-I (Cardio Tracker) ring uses advanced technology to consistently monitor the wearer’s heartbeat. Sky Labs is endeavoring to transform conventional hospital-centric care into patient-centric care through the continuous 24/7 monitoring the ring offers as it records data within a person’s natural environment and throughout normal daily activities. Users wear the CART-I as they would any other ring, with the device available in a range of different sizes to ensure that it is not only comfortable but also works most effectively as a monitoring device.
From a technical perspective, the CART-I embraces photoplethysmography (PPG) signals to measure heart rate – constantly and continuously – coupled with electrocardiogram (ECG) signals to offer supplementary information to doctors. CART-I will deliver AF monitoring with 99.6 percent accuracy, providing real-time measurements and analysis, remote data access for doctors if necessary, and simplicity and ease of use.
Sky Labs is a Korean company, but officially launched CART-I (Cardio Tracker) for British consumers in November, and has now extended its availability through the launch of the designated UK Online site.
Avive Solutions, Inc. is a San Francisco-based privately-held healthcare technology company developing next-generation automated external defibrillator and software solutions in an effort to significantly increase survival rates from Sudden Cardiac Arrest. It is important to note that this device is not yet FDA-approved or commercially available for sale in the US.
Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) kills over 350,000 people every single year in the U.S. alone. Despite being a massive public health issue, survival rates have unfortunately remained dismal at around 10% for decades. Fortunately, there’s a treatment for SCA – a life-saving shock from an Automated External Defibrillator (AED). However, the problem is that AEDs are not readily accessible, and too often don’t get to the people who need them. Avive is on a mission to change that. Packing first-of-its-kind capabilities and the most advanced features in the industry into a smaller, intuitive, more affordable, and connected device, the Avive Connect AED™ sets a new standard for what should be expected of an AED. The Connect AED is powered by Avive’s REALConnect Platform™ is designed to get life-saving therapy to a person when and where it’s needed, seamlessly transfer valuable incident data to 911, EMS, and medical professionals at the right time, and automate remote monitoring to ensure a fleet of devices are ready to save a life.
19. CordiFio
Project Cordifio Health is a social enterprise dedicated to empowering women (and men) through early screening, education, and prevention of heart disease. They do this by developing a digital health platform that empowers women to have informed conversations with their doctors and accelerate the decision-making process. This is a global endeavor for all to advance health equity through diversity and inclusion.
20. Cleerly
Cleerly is a digital healthcare company creating a world without heart attacks. We design intelligent clinical technologies to help clinicians precisely identify and define heart disease earlier, so they can provide personalized, life-saving treatment plans for all patients throughout their care continuum.
Join us on September 26 for our FemTech Untapped event “Gender inequalities in cardiovascular health” to hear and learn from some of these companies.
Jessica Hobbis is a recent graduate from the University of Oxford. In her position working as a Marketing Volunteer for WoW, she has loved the opportunity to learn more about the expanding world of FemTech, while developing a wide array of skills. She has a passion for healthcare, building relationships and making a positive impact, and is excited to put these to use in her future career.