Real-time patient monitoring startup Isansys Lifecare, a UK-based company founded by a former CEO of Toumaz, announced this week the opening of Isansys Lifecare Systems, an India-based venture that aims to capitalize on that country's emerging healthcare industry. The Bangalore-based company officially formed this past July.
Isansys offers the Lifecare Platform, a web-based vital sign monitoring platform, as well as a peel-and-stick, chest-worn cardiac monitoring device, the LifeTouch HRV011. The company was formed by the ex-CEO of Toumaz and another executive, and launched this January.
In a press release, Isansys CEO Keith Errey stated that “India is a country of great interest and strategic importance to us. With a year-on-year GDP growth of 7 per cent or more, a rapidly growing and increasingly wealthy middle class, and a vastly underserved healthcare market, we see huge opportunities for delivering next-generation healthcare services, and we believe that Isansys is ideally placed to bring the valuable benefits of our unique services to the people of India, both in urban and rural communities.”
Isansys Lifecare Systems appointed Bala Kumar as managing director, whose previous experience includes executive director at Omya Healthcare and regional managing director for a division of Covidien.
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Read the press release below.
PRESS RELEASE -- Isansys Lifecare Limited, the provider of complete real-time physiological patient data services and systems, today announces the opening of Isansys Lifecare Systems Pvt Ltd., a new venture that offers access to Isansys’ real-time vital signs data solutions to the fast-growing Indian healthcare market.
Located in Bangalore – the high technology capital of India and a rapidly growing centre of medical equipment and biotechnology – the new company was formally incorporated in July this year and is now fully operational. Earlier this year Isansys debuted its Lifecare Platform, a secure web-based framework for intelligent vital signs data collation and interpretation and, in May, Isansys announced full availability of the first wireless body-worn monitor to run on the platform – the LifeTouch HRV011, a multi-function, unobstrusive body-worn cardiac monitor that adheres to the patient’s body and analyses the ECG signal of every heartbeat. The Lifecare Platform and LifeTouch device deliver a complete working solution for real-time vital signs monitoring that is not available anywhere else in the world. The LifeTouch monitoring system is an ideal solution for large hospitals looking to optimise management of their non-critical care patients, and for smaller hospitals that do not currently have the large medical manpower required to monitor individual non-critical care patients. The system allows hospitals to rapidly implement cost-effective, continuous patient monitoring without any upfront investment in hardware or software, based on a per-use basis.
The Indian healthcare market is currently estimated at US$56 billion and is expected to reach US$75 billion by 2012 and US$150 billion by 2017. Key trends including rising income levels and a growing elderly population are driving this sector growth, including a burgeoning demand by healthcare providers for innovative, market-ready solutions that can enable remote patient monitoring and telehealth services. In addition, changing demographics and disease profiles, the shift from chronic to lifestyle diseases, and a growing focus on preventative medicine in the country is leading to significantly increased spending on healthcare as a whole. These major drivers, together with a push for improved rural medical services that can take advantage of the latest mobile and satellite technology, are generating brand new revenue opportunities for companies focused on delivering key healthcare solutions to meet these increased needs.
The scale of the market opportunity in India – with over 15,000 hospitals, 0.7 million doctors and 1.1 million hospital beds1 – means that the establishment of an India operation to serve the region’s healthcare providers has been a key priority for Isansys. Commenting on the opening of the new company, Isansys CEO Keith Errey said: “India is a country of great interest and strategic importance to us. With a year-on-year GDP growth of 7 per cent or more, a rapidly growing and increasingly wealthy middle class, and a vastly underserved healthcare market, we see huge opportunities for delivering next-generation healthcare services, and we believe that Isansys is ideally placed to bring the valuable benefits of our unique services to the people of India, both in urban and rural communities. We see this move as a step towards a mutually beneficial market opportunity that will utilise the availability of local goods and services for the local market. I am very pleased that we have found such talented and experienced individuals to work with and we look forward to Isansys’ Indian operations providing a model for the continued successful roll-out of our services globally.”
Isansys’ Director of Business Development, Rebecca Weir added: “India, as the world’s largest democracy, has a very clear agenda to improve healthcare provision for all its citizens. We are now in active discussions with the major hospital operators that serve the growing middle classes – already numbering more than 300 million – and proving the strong business case our system creates for hospitals and their patients to harness a wealth of new opportunities for improved clinical outcomes, reduced overall costs and increased revenues. We are also working with companies and organisations developing new healthcare delivery models for the 850 million people who live in rural India. Our scalable and low-cost technology and service models offer clear benefits that make them uniquely suitable for this vast market.”
The India company has appointed Mr Bala A Kumar as Managing Director, with responsibility for all regional operations. Mr Kumar has extensive experience in marketing and supply chain management, including positions as Executive Director for Omya Healthcare and Regional Managing Director for a division of Covidian (formerly Tyco Healthcare). The board of the company comprises experienced executives with backgrounds in clinical medicine, healthcare IT, new business development and logistics.
Isansys India’s Managing Director, Bala Kumar: “I am delighted to be able to be involved in this exciting new venture. Isansys’ introduction of its technology and services to India is very timely. The robust and flexible Lifecare Platform, and the strength of the Isansys business model, allow a range of services to be rapidly configured to meet the needs of the many and varied healthcare delivery organisations in our country. I am looking forward to working with my colleagues in India and the UK to make this company the great success that we all believe it will be.”
1. Source: Ernst & Young
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About Isansys Lifecare Limited (http://www.isansys.com)
Isansys Lifecare is the easy, fast and secure way to new physiological information and clinical insights for better care and improved patient safety.
We work with leading healthcare professionals, institutes and policy organisations operating in a wide range of healthcare settings, who want to employ new patient monitoring technologies and methods to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs.
With comprehensive industry knowledge and the essential technical, clinical and regulatory expertise, Isansys is able to manage the entire process and provide a complete service, focusing on:
•enhancing the relationship between patient and physician
•providing a complete end-to-end system – the Isansys Lifecare Platform – to continuously and wirelessly capture, collect, interpret and securely store vital sign and other physiological patient data. An inherent part of our Platform is a dedicated, world-class team of engineers, mathematicians, physiologists and clinicians.
•offering secure, authorised access to this data on any remote device including desktop, laptop or tablet computer or smart phone.
•generating clinically validated and relevant information in simple usable formats, not columns of numbers or multiple confusing charts. Where appropriate or required, this data is integrated into the clients’ electronic health record system.
•enabling clients to harness the Platform to generate the evidence base necessary to validate clinical and economic outcomes, from proof-of-concept studies and demonstration projects to full large scale system roll out and implementations
About Continuous Patient Physiological Monitoring
It is well documented that patients who deteriorate and require admission to critical care or who suffer cardiac arrest, or many other adverse conditions, have abnormalities that are detectable by physiological observations well in advance. Continuous (or nearly continuous) monitoring of multiple vital signs provides the fundamental input for improved patient outcomes and reduced overall costs.In the US alone, remote patient monitoring devices are forecast to reduce healthcare costs by nearly $200 billion during the next 25 years, if more widely used by patients with certain chronic diseases (Source: Center for Technology and Aging Report, May 2010).
