Sensoria Health unveils new band that monitors key COVID-19 indicators, including blood oxygenation

Sensoria Smart Band. (Sensoria Health Image)

Sensoria Health, makers of wearable technology designed to improve healthcare, has a new Smart Band that tracks key vitals and could help detect potential COVID-19 symptoms.

Redmond, Wash.-based Sensoria Health is a spinoff from Sensoria, the smart sports apparel startup whose garments track movements and measure how well users are running or walking. Sensoria was founded in 2011 by CEO Davide Vigano and his former Microsoft colleagues, and the health company launched three years ago in partnership with Genesis Healthcare.

The new $69 Smart Band measures body temperature, heart rate and blood oxygenation while also monitoring sleep quality and steps. It will be available later this month in the U.S. and Europe.

In a post on LinkedIn, Vigano writes about the importance of blood oxygenation specifically, and why some physicians believe measuring the oxygen level in blood is a critical step in preventing a serious progression of COVID-19 pneumonia.

Vigano references the findings of Dr. Richard Levitan, an emergency room doctor from New Hampshire who wrote about treating COVID pneumonia in the early days of the pandemic. Levitan is the brother of Seattle venture capitalist Dan Levitan and the two teamed on a project to help COVID patients breathe easier.

(Sensoria Health Images)

“Oxygen saturation in healthy individuals (SpO2) should range from 95-100%, so a healthy person could use the Sensoria Smart Band to regularly monitor trends on his or her own measurements conveniently at home and contact a health provider immediately should they notice a visible drop in oxygen saturation trends,” Vigano wrote.

Most traditional pulse oximeter devices work on the tip of the finger, but Sensoria wanted to use a different solution so that users’ would not have their daily routine interrupted. Vigano said Sensoria reached out to its research, sensor and manufacturing partners in the United States and Asia and worked with them to “create a minimalistic and comfortable form factor.”

He said the technology is not exclusive to Sensoria, “but we are going to be among the first to market, that’s for sure.”

The Smart Band can be paired via Bluetooth to a companion app that provides detailed analytics based on measurements collected over time. A cloud-based remote monitoring system can also feed information to an optional employer dashboard, so businesses or healthcare professionals can react quickly to updated information, while privacy is protected.

Last week Amazon released its own health band called Halo that measures body fat, voice tone, sleep quality, and activity.

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The Witcher: Blood Origin será la precuela que contará el origen

The Witcher ha sido uno de los grandes éxitos de Netflix. Tras estrenarse a finales del año pasado, la serie logró una gran popularidad entre los usuarios y fue uno de los grandes alicientes para que muchos otros llegasen a la plataforma. Ahora, con la intención de expandir su universo, Netflix confirma que habrá una precuela.

No hace mucho que supimos que Netflix ya tenía fecha fijada para iniciar la grabación de la segunda temporada de The Witcher, una de sus grandes series y uno de los éxitos más sonados de la historia de la plataforma.

La noticia fue muy celebrada por los fans de las historias de Geralt de Rivia y esta se sumaba a la otra gran noticias que supimos acerca de un anime basado también en la popular saga. Pero ahora van y nos vuelven a sorprender anunciando directamente a través de Twitter que The Witcher tendrá una precuela.

1200 years before Geralt of Rivia, the worlds of monsters, men and elves merged into one, and the first Witcher came to be.

Announcing The Witcher: Blood Origin, a 6 part live-action The Witcher spin-off series from Declan de Barra and Lauren Schmidt Hissrich.

— NX (@NXOnNetflix) July 27, 2020

Tal y como puedes ver en el tweet superior, The Witcher: Blood Origin será el nombre de esa precuela que contará una historia diferente. Una que, para ser exactos, va a transcurrir 1.200 años antes de Geralt de Rivia. Eso significa que nos van a mostrar el origen de todo, esa época en la que monstruos, humanos y elfos convivían en un modo completamente diferente al que conocimos. Hasta que ocurrió aquel crucial evento conocido como la Conjunción de las esferas y se originó el primer brujo. Una historia olvidada tras tantos años.

Declan de Barra y Lauren Schmidt Hissrich serán los responsables de llevar a cabo esta nueva producción que tendrá un formato de mini serie y estará compuesto por seis episodios. En ellos expandirán el universo de The Witcher, ayudando a profundizar mucho más en las historias del mundo del brujo a todos aquellos que así lo deseen.

Para llevar a cabo esta serie no estarán solos, Andrzej Sapkowski, autor de los libros en los que se basa no sólo la serie sino también los vídeojuegos por los que muchos conocieron a The Witcher, será consultor creativo. Lo cual es una muy buena noticia también, pues al final es su mundo el que se va a plasmar.

Por tanto, contar con su criterio y opinión permitirá que todo cuadre mucho mejor con respecto a los libros. Algo que a veces no suele ocurrir por las propias necesidades de un formato tan diferente como es el del vídeo con respecto al papel.

Por lo demás, poca información adicional se tiene acerca de este recién anuncio por parte de Netflix. No se conoce cuándo comenzará la grabación, ni la fecha estimada en la que se tiene planeada estrenar esta precuela de The Witcher. Lo que está claro es que no será algo inmediato, seguramente nos iremos a finales de 2021 o principios de 2022 con suerte. A fin de cuentas hay que trabajar la historia y, como con la segunda temporada de The Wticher, ver cómo evoluciona todo el tema del COVID-19 para que la producción sea lo más segura posible.

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Tasso raises $17M for self-sample blood test; CEO says pandemic increases demand for at-home tests

(Tasso Photo)

Seattle startup Tasso closed a $17 million investment round to help grow its at-home blood collection platform.

The company’s blood sample device, called Tasso OnDemand, lets people take their own blood at home and mail it to a lab directly rather than go to a clinic. This allows for more frequent testing to monitor a drug’s effects on the blood, for example, and also lets people submit samples without going into a physical office.

Tasso was started by Dr. Ben Casavant and Dr. Erwin Berthier, who both received doctorates in biomedical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“The coronavirus pandemic has underscored the surging demand for more diagnostic solutions that are patient-friendly and can be deployed easily at home,” Casavant, the company’s CEO, said in a statement. “The Tasso OnDemand devices are enabling people to be tested for COVID-19 and many other routine diagnostic applications, from anywhere at any time.”

Tasso has pilot programs with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Cedars-Sinai, and others. It is working with Fred Hutch to test for COVID-19 antibodies in serum as part of a study, with samples being mailed back from patients who don’t need to come into a clinic.

The 8-year-old company and Techstars grad developed its platform using $13.1 million of grant funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the National Institute of Health (NIH).

Quest and LabCorp dominate the diagnostics industry, which a number of startups have tried to disrupt through at-home or direct-to-consumer testing. EverlyWell, a startup that received funding through “Shark Tank” and offers a menu of health tests based on samples collected at home, has drawn scrutiny from experts over its accuracy. EveryWell sells an FDA-approved COVID-19 at-home test.

Other competitors include Scanwell, Thriva, WellnessFX, Baze, myLAB, LetsGetChecked, and more. A pair of Portland startup vets recently launched Reperio Health, a subscription service that will deliver a kit containing devices for testing health metrics.

Hambrecht Ducera Growth Ventures led the Series A round, which included participation from Foresite Capital, Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Vertical Venture Partners, Techstars, and Cedars-Sinai. Elizabeth Hambrecht, partner at Hambrecht Ducera Growth Ventures, has joined Tasso’s board.

“With its talented team and proven technology platform, Tasso is poised to transform the traditional, painful, in-person blood draw process, which has been the standard of care for the past six decades,” Hambrecht said in a statement.

To date, Tasso has raised $38.6 million to date in grants, private investments, and co-development collaborations. It previously raised a $6.1 million round in March 2019.

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