Expanding access to heart disease detection is one of cardiology’s biggest challenges, and Finnish startup CardioSignal just raised $10M to address that challenge using one of the most accessible devices in the world – the smartphone.
- CardioSignal uses a proprietary algorithm that analyzes heart motion data produced by smartphones when placed on patients’ chests.
- The Series A round increases CardioSignal’s total funding to $23M, which it will use to support its ongoing clinical validation and expand its commercial efforts.
CardioSignal leverages smartphone gyroscope and accelerometer motion sensors to non-invasively measure heart motion and determine cardiac health and function.
- These exams require users to place their phone on their chest for one minute, creating measurements that are analyzed by CardioSignal’s cloud-based gyrocardiography algorithm, which then sends results to users and/or their clinicians.
- CardioSignal has already developed digital biomarkers for AFib and heart failure, while more solutions could be on the way for aortic stenosis, coronary artery disease, and pulmonary artery hypertension.
This approach might seem far out to many readers, but CardioSignal’s AFib and heart failure biomarkers have been validated in clinical studies, including one that showed relatively high sensitivity and specificity for AFib detection (95.3% & 96.0%).
- The CardioSignal AFib application has also already earned European CE Marking as a Class IIa medical device, allowing its use in 15 countries.
Noting that underdiagnosis and diagnostic inaccessibility are part of the reason that cardiovascular disease is the world’s number one killer, CardioSignal positions itself as an early detection solution for primary care physicians – before their patients even have their own cardiologist and before they have later-stage disease.
- That’s a big difference versus most remote cardiac diagnostic or monitoring programs, which are generally reserved for patients who are already symptomatic, and rely on dedicated medical devices like ECG monitors.
The Takeaway
Considering that there are 209k PCPs in the US alone (plus another 86k primary care NPs and PAs), becoming primary care’s go-to solution for early CVD detection is a massive goal. CardioSignal will face plenty of challenges in achieving that goal, but the fact that many of its targeted patients already own a smartphone also gives it an intriguing head start.
