19th May 2020
The global impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has overwhelmed public and private health care providers internationally with a sudden influx of patients needing acute respiratory treatment, resulting in the discharge of less urgent need patients from hospitals back home or to care homes. A further consequence is the noticeable reduction of A&E admission rates (since the first confirmed Covid-19 case) compared to the previous year’s data, observed as a 57% reduction in the UK and a 50% reduction in the USA. Similarly, the number of patients about to start medical treatment was dramatically reduced and, in some cases, treatment was halted altogether. Patients with chronic diseases who need constant monitoring and treatment also refused to enter medical centres due to the risk of contracting Covid-19 and shortages of medical staff.
Pre-Covid, global health care spending was expected to rise at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 5% from 2019 to 2023. This is driven largely by a growing and ageing population, the rising prevalence of chronic diseases, infrastructure investments, technological advancements and evolving care models. Health care systems are moving into a future in which the collective focus shifts away from treatment, towards prevention and early intervention.
The Company’s remote health monitoring platform is part of The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) where medical devices and applications are connected to healthcare or providers’ IT systems allowing machine-to-machine communications and data analysis.
The Company’s platform is Data-as-a-Platform (DaaP) whereby it remotely extracts insights from patients’ data that is fed into healthcare providers’ IT platforms allowing physicians and healthcare professionals to monitor patients offsite with the aim of either preventing an intervention or preparing a patient for a planned surgical intervention. The value of the data is more valuable than the actual hardware itself which is why medical device companies that currently produce equipment such as for surgeries, joint replacements and diagnostic equipment are shifting their focus to software, data collection and data analysis.
The key markets for the Company’s platform are medical device companies that are building the complete patient journey with underlying treatment procedures, both surgical and non-surgical. A further evolving market for the Company’s technology is the pharmaceutical industry (principally medicating Type 2 diabetes which mainly occurs due to obesity) that needs to have a better and deeper total health insight into their patients.
Commercially, the Company (which is under strict non-disclosure agreements with its partners) has made advances in its move to recognise the value of its remote monitoring DaaP. The recent Covid-19 pandemic has slowed the commercial process. However, the Company is continuing its commercial momentum in these challenging times and will update shareholders in due course.