A Sunderland company that is developing an innovative healthcare and fitness monitor has raised a further £500,000 from the North East Venture Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Mercia Ventures, to help bring it to market.
Applied Monitoring has developed a non-invasive way to continuously monitor lactate levels in blood, which are used to detect when athletes have reached peak exertion and plan their training regime.
Following successful trials at Durham University, the company has signed a contract with a leading European microchip producer to create a miniature device that could be embedded in an armband and sync with a smartwatch.
The device would replace the need for professional athletes to have regular fingerprick blood tests and would make continuous blood lactate monitoring accessible to a much wider audience including amateur athletes, runners and fitness fans.
Applied Monitoring will commercially launch the product within the next 12 months and has already had interest from a number of major fitness and wearables brands. It also plans to develop a device for use in hospitals, where lactate levels can be used to detect sepsis which causes 48,000 deaths in the UK each year, and there is potential to use the technology for other purposes such as monitoring glucose levels.
Applied Monitoring was founded in 2018 by Jon Dixon, the former Head of B2B at Sainsburys and Argos, and Rob Connell, an NHS informatics specialist. They worked with Norway-based Professors Alex Mason and Olga Korostynska to develop their non-invasive sensor technology, which uses electromagnetic waves to detect biomarkers in blood.
The company first received funding from Mercia and the NEVF in 2022. The latest investment brings the total it has raised so far to over £1m.
“A build-up of lactic acid causes muscles to seize up and athletes to suddenly ‘hit a wall’, but it’s hard for them to know when this will happen without measuring lactate levels,” said CEO Dixon.
“Fingerprick tests are uncomfortable, fiddly and not always accurate. Our device will overcome these problems and provide continuous monitoring, rather than a one-off measurement.
“This latest funding, together with our partnership with a major global chip manufacturer, will enable us to bring it to market.”
Ian Wilson of Mercia Ventures added: “Smartwatches can already monitor vital signs such as heartrate and temperature, and now all the big device manufacturers are looking for a way to monitor lactate levels too.
“Applied Monitoring is leading the way and has attracted interest from some of the major players. We look forward to the launch of the new device which could revolutionise the fitness market.”
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