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Albus Health, a UK-based, University of Oxford spin-out company a contactless, AI-powered technology to monitor breathing patterns during sleep chronic disease conditions, has joined AstraZeneca’s BioVentureHub.
One of the most exciting advances in digital technology is the ability to collect data from patients in their homes on a daily – or even continuous – basis that is as reliable as data collected in the clinic. Albus Health’s technology uses sensors to continuously monitor people while they sleep. The technology measures and analyses respiratory, coughing, wheezing and a range of other physiological metrics, as well as environmental factors, such as air quality, humidity and temperature. Such data can add considerable value during clinical trials as it provides insights into what is happening with participants between study visits and gives advance warning of important clinical events such as asthma or COPD attacks, without any disruption to participants’ daily lives.
Tim Harrison, Digital Health R&D lead for Respiratory & Immunology, AstraZeneca, comments, “Sleep quality is an important factor in many chronic diseases. We are very pleased to have Albus Health join the BioVentureHub as we see an exciting potential to use the Albus technology to objectively record sleep quality in clinical studies to highlight how sleep is affected by a variety of diseases, as well as to show how new treatments can improve sleep quality and provide differentiation from the current standard of care.”
Mikesh Udani, CEO at Albus Health, explains the background behind the company’s move to the BioVentureHub, “We are joining the BioVentureHub to be in closer proximity to and learn more from AstraZeneca experts and other BioVentureHub companies on similar journeys to ours. We look forward to working with AstraZeneca to create new gold standards for nocturnal monitoring which can eliminate some of the current challenges and optimise clinical care and research.”
Magnus Björsne, CEO for AstraZeneca’s BioVentureHub, adds, “There is so much to learn about how sleep is affected by poorly-controlled disease and how we can improve this essential component of a healthy life. We are very happy to welcome Mikesh and his team to the BioVentureHub. With their capabilities and expertise spanning devices, digital health and diagnostics, they are a great example of the complementary skills and technologies that the BioVentureHub is looking to add to the melting pot of collaborative, patient-focused health innovation that is developing in and around the AstraZeneca site in Gothenburg.”
Business Region Gothenburg (BRG) has supported Albus Health setting up in Sweden and in the BioVentureHub. Iris Öhrn, Investment Advisor for Life Science at BRG, comments, “It’s great to see innovative, non-Swedish, life science companies like Albus Health establish in the BioVentureHub and become part of the growing life science ecosystem in the Gothenburg region. Besides the world-class AstraZeneca facilities and expertise that Albus Health can now access through the BioVentureHub, we are also excited about other potential collaboration opportunities that the wider ecosystem in West Sweden can offer Albus Health.”
For more information, please visit www.albushealth.com and www.azbioventurehub.com and check out this short video featuring Mikesh Udani, CEO at Albus Health, and Magnus Björsne, CEO at AstraZeneca’s BioVentureHub: