2023-09-13 00:47:23
Any doctor or nurse who makes home visits can today access our entire history instantly and from a simple tablet. Sometimes, and with the same ease as transferring photos from the mobile phone to the computer, healthcare professionals can connect different devices to the same ‘tablet’ to perform some tests. From measurements of blood pressure or blood glucose or oxygen levels to cardiograms or ultrasounds whose results are automatically sent to the corresponding health service. It is one of the facilities that telemedicine already provides us and that is developed by companies such as Biodata Devices, specialized in the development and manufacture of low-cost professional medical devices for mobility environments.
In addition to the home care bags that incorporate up to twelve different devices for carrying out on-site controls, this Valladolid startup that is participating in the next edition of B-Venture develops, for example, the carts with which the Hospital staff move through the rooms taking (and recording) each patient’s basic vital signs.
On-site testing
The equipment incorporates the necessary technology to perform controls such as ultrasounds or cardiograms.
Centralized monitoring
«In reality, basically only the ‘packaging’ in which the equipment is offered changes. Almost the same equipment that the health worker carries in his bag can be installed in an ambulance, in a suitcase on a fishing boat or fixed on a support to remain continuously in the room of a patient undergoing monitoring, whether in a residence or a private home. where it could be the patient himself who self-monitors connected to a centralized monitoring platform,” explains David Astruga, technology director and co-founder of the company.
Biodata Devices
«In our respective previous jobs we came from the social health and telecommunications sector, and that is why it occurred to us that those TV screens that some hospital beds incorporate could go from being mere entertainment to also functioning as medical terminals and alternating both uses. It was 2010, and the idea coincided with the launch of the first ‘tablets’, which encouraged us to change the strategy and focus on these devices because they allowed us to cover the gap between completely professional basic vital signs measuring equipment and domestic type or with mobility,” he emphasizes.
In 2016 they achieved the patent for Spain and in 2018, the European health approval and they began the process. Two years later, when they had just set foot on the market, what could have been the definitive launch of the startup ended up forcing it to stop. «The pandemic arrived when we had started marketing the equipment, but we did not have the capacity to supply the sudden demand we received. We neither had ‘stock’ nor the possibility of obtaining the components to manufacture. The good thing is that it confirmed the need for telemedicine,” says Astruga.
A need that, however, has not yet interested the large companies in the health technology sector, which “at the moment remain more attentive to large projects than to those that occur in mobility environments.” «Both new companies that may emerge and those that are already dedicated to the manufacture of professional equipment that also want to enter this niche have a high barrier to entry that we have already passed; Their devices must be approved as medical products, both by the EU and by the Spanish Agency. It is a process so complex and expensive that the vast majority of startups in the sector are unable to standardize their product,” explains the co-founder of the firm, who assures that this year’s turnover will reach 800,000 euros.
Enter the European market
«The company, which continues working on the integration of new devices into its equipment, already has clients in Morocco, Peru and Panama and now wants to try to enter the European market, especially in France, Germany and England. «It is curious that we are reaching more agreements in regions where our products are not approved than where they are, and that is because the health sector is very professional and very demanding. If you don’t have references, you’re nobody and we now have them,” explains Astruga.
Simplicity
The software integrates all the systems necessary to carry out monitoring in a ‘tablet’
To take that leap, they are seeking funding of half a million euros, which they hope to achieve through their participation in B-Venture, the startup event organized by EL CORREO, which on October 17 and 18 celebrates its eighth edition with sponsorship. of the Department of Economic Development, Sustainability and Environment of the Basque Government, the development agency SPRI, the Provincial Council of Bizkaia and the Bilbao City Council, as well as with the collaboration of BStartup of Banco Sabadell, BBVA Spark, BBK, Laboral Kutxa, CaixaBank and the University of Deusto.
Resolving technology, easy to use and cheap
The great competitive advantage of Biodata Devices is having integrated “very powerful software developed by ourselves into very basic and very cheap hardware,” says David Astruga, technology director and co-founder of the company.
That ‘hardware’ is the ‘tablet’, “a device that costs around 250 euros, so it can be replaced with another without a large budget if it breaks or if you have to adapt to technological developments.
If instead of 5G one day we move to 7G or if the monitoring needs are higher and we require more capacity because we introduce artificial intelligence, it would be enough to change one terminal for another. As if that were not enough, its use is very simple,” he summarizes.
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