Digital Tech Trailblazer

Apps, hardware, mobile devices, big data, and more—the latest advances in digital technologies are transforming not just drug discovery and medicine, but also how patients collect and use their own health data. The Digital Tech Trailblazer award was created to honor the person, company, or organization that is cleverly navigating the potential for digital tools to improve human health.

Watch the Meet the Finalists webcast

The finalists for the 2020 Digital Trailblazer Award are:

Empatica
Empatica specializes in the creation of digital biomarkers, software and medical-grade smartwatches that can be used to continuously and passively monitor a range of medical conditions, from epilepsy to depression. Its Embrace2 was the first smartwatch in Neurology to receive FDA clearance. In February 2019, Empatica partnered with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to develop a wearable system that detects respiratory infections before the onset of symptoms. This involved studies with Duke and Columbia universities, where data was collected and analyzed. Empatica subsequently developed an algorithm that could analyze continuous physiological signals, and that detected patterns in the data that could suggest the presence of a respiratory infection, even if a person was asymptomatic. And as a response to COVID-19, and using this fortuitous head start, Empatica has taken its work on respiratory infection detection a step further and developed a wearable AI system that can provide early detection of COVID-19. Empatica recently renewed its partnership with HHS, and is currently running a multisite validation trial for its COVID-19 early detection algorithm, in order to seek FDA approval.

Eko - Connor Landgraf
As a biomedical engineering undergrad at UC Berkeley, Connor Landgraf realized that the marriage of the stethoscope with AI could have the potential to turn the 200-year-old tool into a diagnostic game changer. Connor, along with two other fellow undergrads, set out to find a way to use AI to help clinicians more accurately detect heart disease during routine office visits. He realized that it was time for the ubiquitous stethoscope – used by virtually all healthcare professionals – to have a makeover. In 2013, Eko was born and the company became the youngest team to receive FDA clearance for a medical device, and their technology is used today by over 40,000 providers across 4,000 hospitals and health systems. Eko has since built the world’s largest database for heart and lung sounds. More recently, Eko launched Eko Telehealth, the first AI-powered telehealth platform for virtual cardiac and pulmonary monitoring. This is the only platform available that incorporates video conferencing with stethoscope audio and ECG live streaming, helping providers expand important access to care while keeping a safe distance from patients with infectious diseases.

Profusa
Imagine a world where we could predict infectious disease outbreaks like the flu before symptoms are visible or monitor glucose levels in real-time to keep diabetes at bay. This predictive, proactive and precise approach to health and wellness is what Profusa is working to bring to life today. Profusa is a digital health company pioneering the next generation of personalized medicine. The company developed a first-of-its-kind injectable biosensor Lumee Oxygen Platform that captures, analyzes and shares continuous streams of personal health data. Profusa’s technology and real-time data enable patients to better understand how their daily decisions impact their overall health and well-being. It also enables clinicians to better manage high-cost populations and spot issues before they become chronic or critical care ailments.

Profusa’s hydrogel-based sensor, injected under the skin, allows the lab to be on the person in order to continuously and accurately mapping and measuring the body’s biochemistry. A lightweight patch that adheres to the skin transmits the data wirelessly to a mobile device, which displays real-time data using a custom app. Overcoming the more than half-century-old biological barrier of foreign body response, Profusa biosensors can remain viable in the body for months/years and with little to no manual intervention.

Recursion
Recursion, a digital biology company industrializing drug discovery, has combined artificial intelligence with automation to create a robust image of cell function and conduct experimental biology at scale in order to test thousands of compounds on hundreds of cellular disease models in parallel.

The company’s platform conducts more than 800,000 controlled experiments and collects more than five million images weekly, contributing to the world’s largest image-based dataset designed for the development of machine learning algorithms in experimental biology and drug discovery. To date, it houses over four petabytes of data generated. This rich, translatable database enables advanced machine learning approaches to reveal drug candidates, mechanisms of action, novel chemistry, and potential toxicity, with the eventual goal of decoding biology and advancing new therapeutics that radically improve people’s lives.

And last year, Recursion was the first company to open a portion of its massive biological dataset for a machine learning competition, RxRx1, to inspire researchers to develop new algorithms that lead to improved drug discovery applications and insights.