The most important breakthrough made by the product that cardio diagnostic start-up CardioGuard Ltd. is now marketing, came about by chance. NIMedical, the company which actually developed it, had intended to develop a small, portable device for monitoring heart disease at home, using commonly known and accepted indicators. Like many other medical device companies, it tested and calibrated the device on the nearest available group of subjects - the founders. So it was quite a disappointment, when the device detected heart disease in one of the group, who as far as was known, was perfectly healthy. "We were sure the device was faulty," says CardioGuard chairman Prof. Daniel (Danny) Goor, a well-known heart surgeon, and the brother of sculptor Ilana Goor.
In 2006, the employee was rushed to hospital, and was probably one of the happiest heart patients in history, and certainly the only one to have shouted out "Eureka" from his hospital bed. "It turned out that the device was not faulty, but had actually detected the disease earlier," Goor explains. "After we put a stent in him, we monitored him with the device throughout the recovery period and we saw that the heart had resumed functioning."
The product can detect heart contraction problems before the symptoms present. As this state becomes more acute, it gradually develops into heart failure, which appears in the form of attacks that can be fatal. Every such attack damages the heart and aggravates the situation even more.
Heart failure is considered one of the most costly diseases to the healthcare system, and tremendous effort has been invested in managing it so as to prevent attacks and slow down the progress of the disease, but these efforts have only been partially successful so far.
"If we diagnose the condition before the symptoms of heart failure appear, we can delay its onset by 10-15 years," says Goor. "The latest Framingham Heart Study (an ongoing research project on heart disease, conducted by US the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the University of Boston, G.W.) in the US notes that one can't conduct angioplasties or radioactive imaging of the heart on every single patient, so it is vital that a non-invasive device for early detection of the disease is developed. It was if the study had commissioned our product."
CardioGuard's device actually measures the body's electrical conductivity and derives information from it, using a mathematical algorithm, on the functioning of the heart when it pumps blood into the arteries. Says Goor, "When the heart pumps blood into the aorta, the aorta expands and its conductivity is higher." This change forms part of a formula developed by the research team headed by Goor, which evaluates the functioning of the heart on the basis of body mass, the body's normal resistance to electricity, and other variables.
The device was originally developed for the purpose of managing the disease and it wasn't until later that it transpired that it also had early detection capabilities. The original version of the product was developed as far back as the early 1990s. In 2000, the product was shown to Goor, who even invested a million dollars in NIMedical, the company that developed it. CardioGuard was established in order to market NIMedical's products.
In addition to being a heart surgeon, Goor is also well now as an advocate for the rights of smokers, and the man who sold his home in Caesarea to Arcadi Gaydamak for $7.5 million ("the negotiations took five minutes. My wife 'made him meet our price'. I was actually a lot more ready to make concessions than her."). Aside from all these, he also invented the technology behind Itamar Medical Ltd. (TASE:ITMR).
CardioGuard was founded by Priority Investments Ltd., and Aims Ltd., a company specializing in the marketing of medical devices. The company's CEO is Raya Steinberg. "The aim is to offer the product as a routine blood pressure check-up, a standard test that can be carried out by, among others, a GP in his surgery," explains company owner Victor Israelovich, who was previously a CEO of an insurance company and of technology and biotechnology companies and companies specializing in information processing. "The company is currently cooperating with, for example, Club 50, a support and social group for the over 50s, founded by (former MK) Uzi Baram."
CardioGuard already markets its device in Taiwan and Japan. It has also filed for US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the device, after a trial it conducted on 100 subjects found it successfully detected 90% of cases of heart failure that were later diagnosed in more complicated, invasive, and more expensive imaging procedures. The company's device has already been approved for use in monitoring heart disease in patients who have already been diagnosed, using standard measurements.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 4, 2008
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