A startup company built on an innovative collaboration between UNO's world-renowned biomechanics department and UNMC's Stephen Rennard, MD, recently closed a seed investment round worth 3 million Israeli shekels, equal to about $965,000.
Led by Israeli investment group eHealth Ventures, the seed round will finance additional development and clinical trials for the startup RespirAI Medical.
"The funds will help us to achieve some key development and clinical milestones," RespirAI CEO Nimrod Bin-Nun said. "The main one is a multi-sites clinical trial that will get us ready for a regulatory trial."
The core technology is believed to be the first device that can accurately detect the earliest signs of what is known as a "COPD exacerbation." It will likely take another year or more before the device is available to the public.
COPD, short for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, is a condition that slowly destroys a patient's lungs, eventually forcing them to live in constant breathlessness.
On occasion, COPD symptoms suddenly can get much worse, in a potentially fatal flare-up called an exacerbation. Exacerbations often only are treatable in intensive care units, and a patient's best chance at survival can rely on how quickly they can get to a hospital.
The root cause of exacerbations remains a mystery, but RespirAI's wearable device could provide COPD sufferers some advance warning that an exacerbation may be imminent.
The device measures the relationship between the rhythms of a patient's pulse rate and their breathing and walking patterns. A subtle, measurable change in those patterns helps determine the likelihood of an exacerbation.
RespirAI was initially created through an intellectual property license deal brokered by UNeMed, the technology transfer and commercialization office for UNMC and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The original invention was a collaboration between Dr. Rennard and former UNO biomechanics researcher Jennifer Yentes, PhD.
UNeTech Institute, the University of Nebraska's startup incubator in Omaha, played crucial role as well, funding a successful national study with an early prototype.