Today, Biospectal’s groundbreaking OptiBP™, the first CE approved smartphone app to measure blood pressure using a fingertip on a smartphone camera that launched has launched in Switzerland, was featured on Swiss national television channel RTS.
In the vignette, RTS explored OptiBP’s potential to dramatically improve user engagement with monitoring blood pressure in their daily life.
With better patient participation in their doctor’s care, they become much more aware and educated about their heart health, which helps doctors overall to be more effective in generating positive life quality.
OptiBP for Android launched on January 30th in Switzerland. It will be available in multiple European countries later in 2024. OptiBP for iOS is in development, and interested users can sign up for notification of its launch status here.
We’re thrilled to announce that have we received European CE MDR Class IIa medical device certification for its optical fingertip blood pressure monitoring app, OptiBP™! This major milestone in our mission to enable ease of access and actionability for remote monitoring the “point of patient” makes the app the first and only software app worldwide to receive the CE mark for measuring blood pressure on a smartphone. CE MDR approval affirms the OptiBP’s compliance with stringent European Union CE MDR regulations for medical device certification and furthers Biospectal’s mission to democratize access to blood pressure monitoring worldwide. We can’t wait to bring blood pressure monitoring to people around the world! Read more here.
One of Biospectal’s core areas of emphasis and a key part of our mission is to enable better health management and longer, healthier lives by leveraging commonly available computing devices for remote monitoring and improved engagement with doctors. By using our mobile app, OptiBP™, to turn smartphone cameras into blood pressure monitors, we can enable people around the world to be more actively engaged partners and improve understanding and adherence to behaviors that maximize their quality of life. With smartphones everywhere in the world more than any other consumer device, we also have a golden opportunity to promote health equity for low resource populations. Biospectal participated in MIT’s Health in Fragile Contexts Challenge and was recognized as one of only a few leaders among a vast number of applications that highly promising and impactful new technology that can affect change for all populations at global scale. The focus of our project is to further our work to test and implement remote patient monitoring in sub-Saharan Africa, specifically in low resource settings in Kenya and the Kibara settlement in Nairobi.
Non-communicable diseases like hypertension account for more than a third of deaths in Kenya, with similar rates across sub-Saharan Africa. The leading cause of heart failure in sub-Saharan Africa is hypertension, while the diagnosis rate remains less than 40%. In addition, approximately 60% of families live in areas defined as urban slums or informal settlements. Ethnographic research conducted on hypertension monitoring in these settlements revealed that they suffer from significantly limited access to clinics. Due to the shortage of clinical resources needed to measure blood pressure, monitoring patient blood pressure after initial diagnosis presents a serious challenge and has a significant impact on managing the disease. Especially in these low income, fragile settings, people lack access to necessary healthcare, while simultaneously, community health workers struggle with traditional clinical models to increase local capacity to treat chronic diseases like hypertension. They simply do not have the resources to follow up with patients out in the community and to capture and manage blood pressure data for effective diagnosis and treatment.
With this recognition, we have further proof that experts recognize the potential of enabling mobile remote monitoring. Our global vision is steadily becoming a reality!
We’re excited to announce that Nature’s NPJ Digital Medicine has published the first independent research and validation study showing the potential of the OptiBP mobile app to manage high blood pressure. In line with our mission to make easy to access and actionable self monitoring of vital signs a reality around the world, we focus on building broad evidence of the utility of mobile blood pressure monitoring in all levels of resource settings. Notably, with the proliferation of smart phones across all populations, OptiBP presents a compelling way to engage patients and amplify the relationship with the care provider and health worker infrastructure.
The results of this study were gathered from the general population and pregnant population participants in Bangladesh, South Africa, and Tanzania. Our focus on hypertensive subpopulations is intended to test and evaluate the solution in order to optimize for health equity and benefit for the good of the widest range of the 1.4 billion people worldwide affected by high blood pressure.
We had a great time returning to our old stomping grounds in Cambridge to share tales as alumni from the startup world and learnings from our journey to bring technology to the world to benefit society. Students recently learned all about Biospectal through Industry Insights, an ongoing speaker series organized by the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) at the Science and Engineering Complex in Allston.
The Industry Insights series is a platform for industry speakers to share information and advice with our students and the SEAS community. The series helps broaden students’ perspectives into the possible pathways where their skills are needed in the world and provides insight into opportunities and challenges from an industry perspective.
Biospectal and Amref Health Africa, the largest health NGO in Africa, today announced the launch of a Mobile Remote Patient Monitoring (MRPM) hypertension management pilot program in Kibera (Nairobi), Kenya, the largest informal settlement in Africa. The first-of-its-kind partnership will enable Biospectal to build upon the four independent World Health Organization validation studies it currently has in progress in South Africa, Tanzania, Bangladesh and Indonesia, and to scale the impact of Biospectal’s OptiBP™ smartphone-based, blood pressure solution across Africa.
We’re at it again! Come visit us in Lausanne, Switzerland on 16 May where Biospectal will present as one of three top innovators by Swiss Healthcare Startups. We’ll present to a select group at SHS Healthcare Madness with Antoine Hubert (Swiss Medical Network) and Nicolas Durand (Abionic) in attendance. For details, see: https://swisshealthcarestartups.com/en/events/shs-healthcare-madness
SXSW 2022 has selected Biospectal to join its list of Innovation Awardfinalists from a huge number of entries for the award ceremony in Austin, TX on 14 March. Come talk with us about our fingertip optical sensing with OptiBP and Biodisc on Saturday at the Innovator’s showcase!
The Biospectal team is excited to announce the debut of Biodisc™, a stand-alone, sleekly-designed, all-in-one, blood pressure monitoring device at CES 2022. Biospectal also plans to announce the public beta launch of Biospectal OptiBP™ for iOS at CES 2022, which will be available in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Spain and Switzerland, and follows the public beta launch of OptiBP for Android at CES 2021. Interested participants can register for the public beta here. Press will be able to get ‘hands on’ with Biodisc and experience OptiBP for iOS for the first time during CES 2022 in Las Vegas at CES Unveiled on Monday evening, January 3 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, at Showstoppers at CES on Wednesday evening, January 5 at the Wynn Hotel, and at the Swiss Pavilion located in the Venetian Expo, Eureka Park, Booth 62821 from January 5 – 8, 2022.
Biospectal SA, the remote patient monitoring biosensing software company, today announced the Biospectal OptiBP™ smartphone blood pressure monitoring app and data platform has been named a winner in the Health category for Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech list, honoring the technology breakthroughs that promise to shape the future of their industries — from healthcare to agriculture to artificial intelligence and more. Biospectal OptiBP for Android launched in public beta in January 2021. OptiBP for iOS is currently in alpha and is planned for public beta launch in the second half of 2021.
