A far-ranging European Union-funded clinical study of heart disease and heart failure will include NI Medical’s cardiac diagnostic device.
The study, called HeartCycle, is aimed at helping heart failure patients better manage their disease through the use of telemonitoring technology. The four-year study was called “one of the largest biomedical and healthcare research projects in the EU” when it was announced in 2008.
The research is being led by Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG) and has a budget of 20.7 million euro — $28.6 million at current exchange rates — and is largely funded by the EU.
Inclusion in such a high-proflie study is significant for NI Medical because it’ll help raise awareness among clinicians for the company’s technology, which received Food & Drug Administration approval for sales in the U.S. last year, Hitchcock said.
The study’s chief scientific medical officer is cardiologist Dr. John Cleland, the chair of cardiology at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom.
“We selected NI Medical’s NICaS for this trial because it has proven to be accurate, cost-effective and easier to operate than technologies offered by many other device makers,” Cleland said in a statement from NI Medical.
The Akron, Ohio-based company’s NICaS Cardiac Surveyor uses impedance technology to measure heart health. The device meters several blood circulation data points, including stroke volume, cardiac output, peripheral resistance and respiratory rate. The company designed the NICaS to help diagnose congestive heart failure, which occurs when the heart can’t pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs, in its early stages.
NI Medical was founded in Israel, and earlier this year set up its U.S. operations. So far the company has just one employee in Akron, COO Tom Hitchcock, but plans to soon add more and eventually base its international sales team in northeast Ohio, according to Hitchcock.
