Healthcare technology company Aktiia has received CE mark in Europe for its calibration-free technology CALFREE, which allows blood pressure data to be collected using inputs from optical sensors commonly found in smartwatches and in the cameras of commercial smartphones. 

Approval of Aktiia's CALFREE technology will allow it to offer integration of its medical-grade optical blood pressure monitoring to third-party companies developing consumer devices, such as smartwatches, smartphone cameras and smart bands.

"This is a major disruption in the field, demonstrating that we have now mastered the technology that allows us to transform any smartwatch, feeding our models with signals from their optical sensors, and any smartphone, feeding our models with signals from their cameras when users place their finger on it, into medical-grade BP monitors!" Dr. Josep Sola, CTO and cofounder of Aktiia, told MobiHealthNews in an email.  

"We believe this achievement will have major implications for wearable and mobile industry strategies (finally enabling large-scale optical BP monitoring) and public health (finally enabling large-scale hypertension diagnosis and management campaigns)."

THE LARGER TREND

The Swiss company, founded in 2018, was a spin-out of CSEM, a Swiss research and development center.

Aktiia offers a wrist-worn optical blood pressure monitoring device that continuously analyzes blood pressure and heart rate data, activity, and sleep and awake contextualization. 

It launched its 24/7 automated blood pressure monitoring system in 2021 after receiving CE mark; however, the system required monthly calibration. Wearers can gather insight from the readings and view those insights via the company's mobile app. 

Aktiia says it has created extensive foundation models of blood pressure by analyzing the datasets collected by its more than 70,000 users to advance the collective understanding of blood pressure.

The company completed a CHF 27 million ($30 million) funding round in February.

In 2021, roughly a year after it announced it secured $6.1 million in funding, the company secured $17.5 million in Series A funding.