Introducing Nanotechnology to improve patient outcomes - Venk Varadan : 22

For most MedTech devices, the path to development starts with defining a market need, then creating a technology to fill that need. But sometimes innovation lies in finding a new application for an existing technology. And sometimes the inspiration can come from a totally unexpected place.

Such was the case for Venk Varadan, indie film producer-turned MedTech CEO of Nanowear, a wearable diagnostic device for cardiac patients. Nanowear adapted a unique sensor technology originally designed to provide data-rich sonar for submarines and high-flying aircraft, to create a cloth nanotechnology, which captures and transmits 85+ dimensions of clinical-grade biomarker data from basic skin contact. The fabric has a suede-like texture, which comes from billions of tiny vertical sensors.

Nanowear’s SimpleSense™ is an FDA-cleared wearable A.I.-based remote diagnostic platform.  The non-invasive smart fabric collects a variety of metrics including ECG, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, actigraphy, impedance cardiography, thoracic impedance, and cardio-phonography. 

Nanowear is one of a handful of ways to track heart rate, blood pressure, and other vital signs for long periods of time. But the big plus is that it’s non-invasive and can be used at home, facilitating patient compliance and, through telehealth, expanding the geography of high-quality care in rural markets. 

Andy Rogers of Key Tech gets to the heart of the matter as he talks with Venk about the journey from lab to marketplace.

Need to know:

• Decide who you’re going to be. Early on, Nanowear chose to go into MedTech, when they could have easily applied their technology to sports or wellness markets. 
• Don’t be afraid to re-think. Nanowear was originally two products: a tank top for men and a bra for women. The realities of sizing and inventory forced a change to a unisex shoulder sash.
• Know what you don’t know. Become an information sponge.
• Start small, stay small. After seven years, the Nanowear team is still only 30 people, recruited mainly from family (Venk’s father, Vijay, developed the fundamental technology), friends, and colleagues.
• Look at the angles. Consider the viewpoints of all your stakeholders: investors, clinicians, patients, and your own staff. 

The nitty-gritty

The primary factors that drive the application of nanosensors in healthcare are their non-invasive ease of use, high signal fidelity, and continuous monitoring capability.  Nanowear’s shoulder sash is an easy-to-use multi-metric diagnostic system with state-of-the-art embedded wireless network devices that feeds data to a smartphone, a laptop, or directly to a remote server. This in turn enables a closed-loop digital system for specific machine-learning algorithms built on terabytes of patient data.

Right now, Nanowear is focusing on monitoring congestive heart failure, which affects over 5 million patients in the U.S. With this versatile undergarment, doctors can remotely monitor patients and hopefully reduce expensive hospital visits. For patients, it’s a comfortable, easy way to stay on top of their condition. 

The SimpleSense™ fabric is the first cloth that’s FDA 510-cleared, but pioneering the cloth technology was only the beginning. The next challenge was dealing with the “firehose of data” that it generated.

Collecting more data. Nanowear sensors capture 85+ medical grade biomarkers directly from the skin and provide accurate, continuous, real-time assessment of the heart, lungs, and upper vascular system: a more comprehensive picture of patient health. 

Managing more data. The cloth technology produces exceptionally high-quality raw signal data. To analyze millions of data points per patient per day, Nanowear had t