Itamar Medical, a digital health company, focused on sleep apnea management into the cardiac patient care pathway, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the technology and assets of Spry Health, a clinical-grade wearable wrist-band that monitors vital signs and conditions, for an undisclosed cash amount.
Spry offers a watch-like wrist-worn home-based vital signs and conditions monitoring medical device called the Loop System.
Loop System remotely tracks heart rate, pulse oximetry (SpO2), and respiratory rate. It was FDA-cleared in April 2019 as a tool for clinicians to remotely monitor their patients with chronic diseases, allowing them to detect early signs of deterioration.
According to the company, for clinicians, this wrist-worn wearable helps identify patients at risk and prioritize care.
“The acquisition of their FDA-cleared, wrist-worn technology and the addition of a knowledgeable pool of selected talented engineers, led by Spry co-founder and CTO Elad Ferber, provides an excellent platform for us to jump-start our development initiatives to bring to market a continuous sleep apnea monitoring device to support chronic disease management, particularly as it contributes to the added burden on cardiovascular disease,” said Gilad Glick, President and Chief Executive Officer of Itamar Medical.
Spry Health is backed by Grove Ventures, Stanford-StartX Fund, OVO Fund, Think+. The company secured $5.5 million in Series A funding in June 2017.
“Sleep apnea is a serious and common respiratory disorder. Recent studies have shown that 50-80% of patients with cardiovascular disease, including hypertension, stroke, atrial fibrillation, and HF have significant sleep apnea – and patients with uncontrolled sleep apnea are more likely to have worse outcomes, including uncontrolled hypertension, refractory afib, and higher mortality,” said Dan Bensimhon, MD Medical Director Advanced Heart Failure & Mechanical Circulatory Support at Moses Cone Health.
“Enabling cardiac-based RPM programs in patients with CV disease will almost certainly be a game-changer in helping us identify sleep apnea – and its burden – earlier in these patients and lead to better outcomes across the board.”
In 2020, a total of 184 digital health companies were acquired/merged compared to 169 in 2019, a 9% increase in deal activity. Learn more
