Kamleon is a spin-off company from the University Rovira & Virgili, based on a strong science foundation currently located in Barcelona, Spain, that focuses on developing user-centered technologies that are capable of monitoring a wide range of human biochemical parameters in real-time through non-invasive, ultra-low cost and robust technologies.
The company is currently focused on developing sensors to monitor dehydration - an imbalance of water, the most essential nutrient in the human body - that is a silent threat affecting the health and wellbeing of a large fraction of the world population. Precisely, vulnerable groups such as children, elderly, pregnant and breastfeeding women, athletes or outdoor workers present the highest prevalence resulting in associated acute and long-term health risks. In fact, elderly people over 65 years old have been reported with an incidence of 81 % representing 1 of the top 10 causes of for more frequent hospitalization and being 1 of the 5 most expensive with 6,140 € x hospitalizations cost. This has been estimated with a preventable economic cost of 1.8 € B annually (Xiao et al., (2004). Economic burden of dehydration among hospitalized elderly patients. Am J Health Syst Pharm, 61(23), 2534-2540) and is forecasted to double as the aging population over 60 years will increase double from 12% to 22% in 2050 (Global life sciences outlook: Thriving in today’s uncertain market. Deloitte LLP, 2017).
Interestingly, poor educational habits driven by the lack of suitable tools and reliable information to monitor the hydration status stands as the major problems to overcome this health issue. In this sense, the objectives of the present project were:
● Define a clear go-to-market development roadmap by exploring and defining the value proposition for monitoring dehydration - specifically in the most vulnerable groups -
● Advance and refine the technological development of embedded biochemical technologies to monitor dehydration.
● Build a solid business case that can sustain the technological development into a profitable and scalable business while impacting to society.
It is clear that with the increasing aging population there is an urgent need to explore novel solutions capable to raise awareness, prevent and better monitor the status of dehydration. Solutions that can be extremely simple to help people to minimize the risk of dehydration and help to make personalized hydration recommendation, thus improving their quality of life and producing a positive social and economic impact on the short- and long-term public health.
