Dynocardia’s Direct Continuous Blood Pressure Monitoring Technology Receives Grant from NIH’s Commercialization Readiness Pilot Program

The grant, which is awarded to companies developing significantly impactful technologies with the potential to change clinical practice, will support the commercialization of Dynocardia’s proprietary ViTrack® continuous non-invasive blood pressure (cNIBP) technology.

Cambridge, MA. (October 10, 2024) – The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), one of the institutes that comprise the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded Dynocardia, a medical technology company that is pioneering a new modality in blood pressure (BP) monitoring, a $500,000 grant under its Commercial Readiness Pilot (CRP) Program. The grant will accelerate the late-stage development of ViTrack cNIBP technology, an innovative wrist-worn technology that offers accurate, continuous BP measurement. The funds will be utilized to complete verification and validation testing, followed by a premarketing submission to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The NIH has consistently highlighted the critical need for accurate BP monitoring in enhancing public health. In 2015, the founders of Dynocardia responded to the NIH's call for new technologies for accurate BP monitoring and, based on fundamental research, developed ViTrack technology. This technology incorporates a proprietary optical force sensor and a unique approach to accurately measure continuous BP and other heart function parameters.

Over the last 3 years, with nearly $5.1 million in funding from NHLBI, Dynocardia has rigorously tested its ViTrack technology against the invasive arterial lines typically used in operating rooms and intensive care units (ICUs), which are the company’s initial target markets. In clinical studies, ViTrack technology has consistently demonstrated the ability to deliver accurate and reliable continuous non-invasive monitoring of systolic and diastolic BP—all in a user-independent wrist-worn device.

This CRP grant was approved based on ViTrack technology’s groundbreaking approach to BP monitoring and measurement relative to existing and emerging methodologies and its potential to revolutionize clinical practice.

Standard arm-cuff BP monitors are often inaccurate and can result in monitoring gaps in hospitals and other clinical care settings. This can result in undetected episodes of hypotension (low BP) during critical illness, surgeries, and post-surgical recovery. These undetected and untreated episodes are associated with millions of heart attacks, kidney damage, and mortality in US hospitals. Additionally, BP cuffs contribute to 30 percent of misdiagnoses and pose a hurdle to BP control in people with chronic hypertension. Similar to how continuous glucose monitors have revolutionized the management of patients with diabetes, there is a need for accurate and continuous BP measurements, which can benefit 120 million Americans living with chronic hypertension.

Dynocardia’s ViTrack technology takes a fundamentally different approach to BP measurement, resulting in an accurate, continuous, direct measurement of BP. ViTrack technology uses a unique optomechanical sensor that interprets real-time absolute systolic and diastolic BP for every heartbeat from continuous video images of the skin displacement over the radial artery at the wrist. It does this without the need for a traditional BP cuff. ViTrack technology’s unique features include its proprietary computer vision technology for motion correction and its ability to account for changes in BP due to hydrostatic pressure changes, enabling reliable measurements despite patient movement.

“Routine vital sign monitoring at four to six-hour intervals misses many episodes of dangerously low or high blood pressure,” commented Daniel I. Sessler, MD, Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Vice-president for Clinical and Outcomes Research at UTHealth Houston, who participated in preclinical trials for ViTrack technology. “Continuous monitoring will allow clinicians to identify patients who are doing poorly and to intervene to get them back on the path to recovery.”

“The continued support of the NHLBI is a powerful vote of confidence regarding the potential for ViTrack technology to significantly change clinical practice and benefit millions of patients globally,” said Mohan Thanikachalam, MD, cardiac surgeon and Founder and CEO of Dynocardia. “Accurate and continuous BP monitoring is crucial to ensuring optimal care of critically ill patients as well as millions of people with chronic hypertension, the number one cause of stroke and heart attack around the globe."

For more information:
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dynocardias-direct-continuous-blood-pressure-monitoring-technology-receives-grant-from-nihs-commercialization-readiness-pilot-program-302272937.html