Eko Devices, a member of Stanford’s accelerator StartX, is moving ahead with a digital accessory for analog stethoscopes to transform them into electronic stethoscopes. The idea is to create a clinical decision support tool with a digital capability without the price tag of an electronic stethoscope. It’s intended to improve the ability to detect nuances in heart sounds to reduce the error rate for misdiagnosed cardiac events by residents and cutting the costs of unnecessary tests.
The seven-member team is led by CEO and co-founder Connor Landgraf. Eko was one of a group of StartX companies to participate in Demo day this week — another healthcare company in the class is PicnicHealth. The Eko Core attachment uses Bluetooth low energy to transmit audio and analyze heart sounds by using a cloud-based heart murmur detection algorithm. It can be attached to an analog stethoscope in about one minute. Users can also use a switch to go from analog to digital, according to an emailed statement from Jason Bellet, vice president of business development, in response to questions.
“Our goal behind Eko is to create an affordable and easy-to-use stethoscope solution that will advance the adoption of digital stethoscopes, increase the ease of heart murmur screenings, and reduce unnecessary echocardiograms,” Bellet said.
The device uses Bluetooth low energy to transmit audio and analyze heart sounds by using a cloud-based heart murmur detection algorithm. A mobile app gives an audio and visual display of the heart sounds that can be saved in a patient portal and added to an electronic health record. By making it easier to share heart sounds it could help primary care physicians with referrals to cardiologists. Pediatricians could use the device to detect faint murmurs in young patients. It could also provide a useful training tool for aspiring cardiologists.
Bellet added: “As [electronic health record] adoption reaches 90 percent by 2016, practitioners have expressed the desire to integrate our product with their EHR/EMR to securely save and share patient heart sounds…”
Asked about the company’s time frame for bringing the digital device to market, Bellet said the company plans to submit an application for 510(k) clearance for a Class 2 medical device with the FDA this fall and ideally bring it to market in Spring 2015.
Eko won’t be the first digital stethoscope accessory to get FDA clearance. Last year, Rijuven secured FDA clearance for its cardiosleeve but it’s website is still taking pre-orders. The electronic stethoscope market opportunity is not huge — Global Industry Analysts estimated that would reach $342 million by 2017. Critics of these devices contend they don’t significantly improve the sound quality and can make it more difficult to accurately hear heart sounds because they combine too much ambient sound. But apart from 3M, the market for electronic stethoscopes is fragmented.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
But that doesn’t seem to have daunted the company’s investors nor its collaboration partners. So far it has received $800,000 in seed investment, according to Bellet. It is developing strategic partnerships with EHR companies, hospital systems, and medical associations. Most recently, it added a vice president of sales, Douglas Grant. He had previously worked for Conceptus, which Bayer acquired last year for just over $1 billion.
