The healthcare industry is moving fast towards personalized and precision healthcare, so each patient can receive the right treatment at the right time and at the right dose. However, how can this be done if there is no tool today that can track our health in real-time? How can we find the right window of action if we only get snapshots at given intervals with conventional blood tests? Current available wearables typically track physical information continuously with the use of sensors such as accelerometers and gyroscopes to count the number of steps and measure movements and heart rate monitors. They do not collect biochemical data to measure how the health status of individuals truly evolves over time.
With healthcare costs skyrocketing in many countries, governments have no choice but turn to preventive health. This has opened up a huge market opportunity for screening and monitoring technologies that allow patients to be monitored remotely before and after a procedure, and during a treatment. A wearable health device can extend a care strategy at home, provide the means for medical professionals to react more promptly to relapses, generate continuous and objective cohort data, and monitor treatment adherence.
Pressure to develop simple and minimally-invasive alternatives to blood testing is pushing many companies to innovate. Among the biofluids available on the body, the interstitial fluid (ISF) is considered to be a very promising candidate, because it can be tracked repeatedly over day and night, without intruding on an individual’s life. Continuous glucose monitoring – which is done in ISF – has emerged as the fast-growing alternative to the finger prick traditional measurements, with a continuous, minimally-invasive solution for real-time feedback. Continuous glucose monitoring devices (CGMs) have normalized the wearing of a wearable, connected patch for patients, paving the way for solutions that go beyond glucose.
