Acurable, an award-winning wearable medical devices company, has announced a huge investment as a result of its Series A funding round. These funds will be used to accelerate the international expansion of its first product AcuPebble SA100 and drive the company toward its ambition to become the preferred solution for home sleep testing worldwide. The investment was led by Kibo Ventures, along with Mundi Ventures, Kindred Capital, and Comprador Holdings, among others.
Acurable’s first product AcuPebble SA100 simplifies obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) detection and monitoring by enabling fully automated testing of patients at home for the first time. After successfully launching AcuPebble SA100 in the UK and Spain in 2021, Acurable is now looking to scale up in these two countries and expand into further European markets and North America.
AcuPebble SA100 is the first wearable medical device to obtain a CE mark in Europe for the automated diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea at home, and has received FDA 510(k) clearance in the US. It is also the first device in the world that achieves the accuracy in likelihood ratios required by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to consider a diagnostic method equivalent to the gold standard.
This funding follows the recent announcement of a strategic distribution agreement with Nyxoah to provide the AcuPebble SA100 home sleep test to the German market.
Acurable’s international expansion brings it one step closer to solving the current unmet needs in diagnosis and monitoring of OSA – a significant issue affecting approximately one billion people globally.1
Professor Esther Rodriguez-Villegas, inventor of the AcuPebble technology, co-CEO and founder of Acurable, is a world-renowned scientist and has been awarded some of the highest recognitions in her field.
She commented: “The response to AcuPebble SA100 since its launch has been incredible, and we are thrilled to see the product being used to help patients and clinicians in the real world. This funding will help us reach our initial goal of diagnosing one million patients and gives us the opportunity to continue working on new products that will fundamentally improve the lives of millions of people living with severe chronic conditions.”
Based on contact acoustic sensing, AcuPebble technology is able to automatically extract a wide range of cardio-respiratory disease-related physiological markers. It does this non-invasively and continuously with accuracy comparable to current complex gold-standard methods, which rely heavily on clinical human resources. The technology is ideally positioned to play a significant role in improving the diagnosis and management of some of the most significant chronic respiratory and cardiovascular conditions today.
These affect hundreds of millions of people, have significant unmet needs in terms of patient monitoring, and are among the most common causes of death globally. Series A funding will allow Acurable to continue investing in new products for these conditions.
Sonia Fernández, Partner at Kibo Ventures, said: “We are delighted to be joining Acurable’s exciting journey. AcuPebble has the potential to transform the way sleep apnoea and other chronic conditions are diagnosed and monitored. It’s much more accurate and easier to use than other devices, and we believe it’s a huge step forward for global healthcare. This is still just the beginning for Acurable and I cannot wait for what comes next.”
About AcuPebble
AcuPebble SA100 is a home sleep apnea testing device launched in the UK in late 2020, following completion of a large clinical trial conducted at the Royal Free Hospital in London that demonstrated the safety and effectiveness of AcuPebble SA100 against multi-channel polygraphy (94% positive predictive value, 98% negative predictive value).2 The results of this clinical trial were published in the British Medical Journal Open.3
AcuPebble provides an instant diagnostic sleep test result that is equivalent in accuracy to the ambulatory gold standard – cardiorespiratory polygraphy, which requires time consuming clinical interpretation. The AcuPebble sensor is very small and non-invasive. Simple instructions provided by a companion mobile application guide the patient through their sleep study without any training – creating a seamless patient experience.
AcuPebble is the first wearable medical device to obtain a CE mark in Europe for the automated testing of obstructive sleep apnea at home, without requiring patients to be trained by a healthcare professional, with positive and negative likelihood ratios over 10 and below 0.1, respectively.
AcuPebble has also obtained FDA 510(k) clearance for OSA evaluation in adults, and is the first device in the world that achieves the accuracy in likelihood ratios required by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to consider a diagnostic method equivalent to the gold standard.
AcuPebble systems operate on the principle of acoustic sensing, whereby the sounds generated by the body’s physiological functions are sensed with a proprietary non-invasive wearable device. The signals are then transferred wirelessly to a mobile device and to the cloud where algorithms (also proprietary) automatically extract the physiological parameters and indexes used by doctors for the diagnosis and management of important cardio-respiratory conditions such as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).
These algorithms reduce the need for clinicians to spend large periods of time interpreting data. For example, in the case of OSA, doctors only need to spend a total of ~30 mins per patient with AcuPebble compared to 2-3 hours with the gold-standard methods of diagnosis.
The technology is a breakthrough in respiratory medicine and has been recognised with a prestigious XPRIZE and several Innovate UK grants.
Following its launch, the product was chosen through a rigorous selection process to join the NHS Innovation Accelerator, a program that supports promising innovations for wide adoption across NHS England for the benefit of patients, populations, and NHS staff. AcuPebble is now being used in several hospitals in the UK and Spain, with healthcare professionals across multiple disciplines recognising its potential to reduce costs and waiting times, and improve the patient experience.
About Acurable
Acurable is a fast-growing medical devices company with offices in London and Seville.
Acurable creates accurate and user-friendly wearable medical devices intended to be used by patients themselves at home.
Its award-winning, patented AcuPebble technology enables the automated diagnosis and management of respiratory conditions at home. It builds on the foundation of more than 10 years’ research at the Wearable Technologies Lab in Imperial College London, by Acurable’s founder, Professor Esther Rodriguez-Villegas.
Acurable’s next focus is to continue to launch AcuPebble SA100 in new markets and countries, while developing new products based on AcuPebble technology that will fundamentally improve the lives of millions of people suffering from serious chronic respiratory and cardiovascular conditions.
Acurable has been backed to date by several investors including Mundi Ventures and Kindred Capital.
The Series A round was led by Kibo Ventures with participation from existing and new investors.
For more information, please visit www.acurable.com.
About the investors
Kibo Ventures is a VC fund focused on European tech companies ready to scale globally, with previous investments in success stories such as Flywire, JobandTalent, Devo, Tier Mobility and Sorare.
Mundi Ventures is a VC fund focused on international healthtech and insurtech companies, with previous investments in success stories such as Wefox, +Simple, Bolttech, Urban Jungle and Luko.
Comprador is a spin-off from Blackstone Partners Asia with a strong principal investment focus on healthcare, and is making its investment in partnership with several close family office clients.
About Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA)
OSA is the third most common serious respiratory disorder, affecting up to 24% of adults and up to 5% of children (approximately 1 billion people globally). The condition causes sufferers to repeatedly stop breathing while they are asleep, usually due to obstruction of the airway. If left untreated, OSA can lead to serious health implications including high blood pressure, heart attack, type 2 diabetes and dementia. It is also the cause of 25% of road accidents due to tiredness.
Due to the high long-term costs associated with these comorbidities, several studies have demonstrated that early diagnosis and treatment of OSA is cost-effective and could save the NHS up to £55m per year, and up to $20k per year per patient in the US.
REFERENCES
- Benjafield, A. V., Ayas, N. T., et al. Estimation of the global prevalence and burden of obstructive sleep apnoea: a literature-based analysis. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine 2019; 7(8): 687–698. doi:10.1016/s2213-2600(19)30198-5.
- Acurable. AcuPebble SA100 – evidence. Available from: https://acurable.com/en/products/acupebble-SA100/evidence. Accessed August 2022.
- Devani, N., Pramono, R. X. A., et al. Accuracy and usability of AcuPebble SA100 for automated diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnoea in the home environment setting: an evaluation study. BMJ Open 2021, 11(12), e046803. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-046803.
FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay.
