Sean Milmo, European Editor02.26.20
The medical sensors market is growing rapidly at the moment, driven by the need to reduce healthcare costs by improving treatments, particularly of chronic illnesses among the elderly.
The world’s aging population will increase by 56% to 1.4 billion by 2030 accounting for 16% of the total, Nadia Tsao, senior technology analyst, IDTechEx, told a conference in September at Cambridge, England, organized by the UK-based business intelligence consultancy.
The global biosensor market will be expanding at an average annual rate of 8% between 2016 and 2024. It will then be worth $150 billion compared to $15 billion 10 years previously, according to Martin Peacock, another speaker at the conference and director of Zimmer & Peacock, a contract designer and manufacturer of remote monitoring sensors.
A factor behind the strong growth rate is innovative technologies leading to the introduction of sensors that can generate new types of data on already monitored diseases but also data on medical conditions that have been monitored only to a limited extent or not at all.
The data from sensors is also easier to process and to analyze, partly because of its greater accuracy and because of improvements in data analytics.
The greater availability of high quality, printable materials has meant that the market for medical sensors is increasingly being served by large, roll-to-roll production units able to manufacture relatively low-cost devices.
This has stimulated the rise of mass-scale contract manufacturing in the sector, particularly for SMEs, the conference was told.
However, in its fast expansion in the healthcare market in Europe, the sensors sector is subject to tough regulations governing areas staffed by healthcare professionals and managers whose priority is proven quality, safety and efficacy. Regulatory compliance is essential for commercial success.
New European Union regulations on medical devices and in-vitro diagnostics due to come into effect in the next few years will harmonize the quality and safety standards of medical sensors across Europe.
Medical Sensors
Currently, medical sensors are used predominantly in the treatment of the major chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disorders and respiratory conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Blood glucose monitoring has the largest share in the biosensors’ medical applications segment, with its market size predicted to exceed $15 billion by 2024, Peacock told the meeting.
Sensor technologies are now able to measure relatively accurately and reliably a widening range of substances in the human body. This is boosting the development of technologies and data analysis methods enabling the scope of monitoring to be extended across many diseases. Some companies, on the other hand, are using these new technologies to build specialist platforms for the provision of sensors covering different aspects of the same disease.
There has been a big increase, for example, in gas sensors able to provide breath analysis in the treatment of gastrointestinal, metabolic, inflammatory and respiratory conditions, Raghu Das, IDTechEx chief executive, said at the conference.
In the last 10 years, the number of clinical trials on breath analysis devices had risen around sevenfold.
Jurryt Vellinga, chief executive of the Dutch company ItoM, a specialist in medical device development, gave details at the meeting of a sensor system measuring breathing patterns in and around the diaphragm.
This could be used for overnight monitoring of the 40% of child asthma sufferers with poorly controlled or severe forms of the disease. The sensor can detect early signals in breathing patterns to stop asthma attacks.
‘’It is a preventive system which results in fewer cases of hospitalization of young asthma patients,’’ said Vellinga.
UK-based Applied Nanodetectors has developed a gas sensor which provides a handheld breath test system to be used by clinicians and patients for early detection of COPD and asthma exacerbations.
It satisfies “an unmet need for non-invasive, simple tests that can diagnose and monitor these conditions accurately,’’ managing director Victor Higgs said.
The company’s nano-based sensor array can react to a wide range of volatile target gas molecules. Its nanotechnology enables it to be “x 1000 cheaper and x 100 smaller than conventional technology,’’ according to Higgs.
“(There’s) hundreds of biomarkers in exhaled breath,’’ he said. “We aim to become a world leader in point- of- care exhaled breath diagnostics for home management of chronic conditions. Our handheld breath test will give users rapid diagnosis and personalized treatment in less than 1 minute.”
The German Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Systems and Device Technology (IISB) has developed a screen-printed sensor for monitoring exercise-induced sweat for the detection of excess ammonia showing physical stress. For the moment it is for use by non-specialists.
“(It’s) cheap, small, portable and capable of being used by semi-skilled operators,’’ explained Alicia Zoerner, an IISB research scientist, adding the institute is now working on improvements based on textile-integrated hardware for real-time analysis and adaption for new applications.
An increasing number of sensor developers are focusing on continuous temperature measurement.
“Temperature is the only vital sign not continuously monitored, outside of the intensive care unit where invasive ( measurement systems) are used,’’ said Matthew Ream, executive VP marketing and innovations, Blue Spark Technologies, Westlake, OH. “(Our TempTraq sensor system) solves this problem with a clinically tested non-invasive solution giving clinicians information to improve patient outcomes by detecting fever faster than the current standard of care.’’
This means that the onset of conditions like sepsis or neutropenic fever caused by lower infection-fighting white blood cells is caught sooner. Mortality from sepsis, for example, increases 8% for every hour treatment is delayed, Ream said.
Another innovation is diversification in sensor locations on the human body. Cosinuss GmbH, Munich, Germany, has introduced a sensor system sited in the ear canal which can measure heart rate, body temperature, breathing rate, blood pressure and other indicators.
“In-ear vital sign monitoring is the best choice for health data collection,’’ said chief executive Johannes Kreuzer.
A relatively new medical area for sensors is measuring stress through the monitoring with wearables of a variety of indicators like heart rate variability, respiration, electronic activity on the skin, pulse rate and sleep quality, explained Sudhir Mulpuru of the industrial and healthcare business unit of Maxim International, San Jose, CA.
“Stress is the number one cause of chronic health issues,’’ he continued. “It can lead to stress exhaustion, which if it is not treated can kill you.’’
However, the effectiveness of stress-focused sensor systems like Maxim’s relies a lot on the standard of the analytics of the data from the different indicators. This, in turn, depends on the quality of the signals from the sensors, which can be impeded by levels of interference or noise.
A characteristic of future sensor systems will be their ability to provide data from multiple sources. “The quality of the data will be vital for the effectiveness of algorithms and a key factor in data quality will be the signal to noise ratio,’’ said Mulpuru. “The lower the ratio the greater the chance of commercial success.’’
European Editor Sean Milmo is an Essex, UK-based writer specializing in coverage of the chemical industry.
The world’s aging population will increase by 56% to 1.4 billion by 2030 accounting for 16% of the total, Nadia Tsao, senior technology analyst, IDTechEx, told a conference in September at Cambridge, England, organized by the UK-based business intelligence consultancy.
The global biosensor market will be expanding at an average annual rate of 8% between 2016 and 2024. It will then be worth $150 billion compared to $15 billion 10 years previously, according to Martin Peacock, another speaker at the conference and director of Zimmer & Peacock, a contract designer and manufacturer of remote monitoring sensors.
A factor behind the strong growth rate is innovative technologies leading to the introduction of sensors that can generate new types of data on already monitored diseases but also data on medical conditions that have been monitored only to a limited extent or not at all.
The data from sensors is also easier to process and to analyze, partly because of its greater accuracy and because of improvements in data analytics.
The greater availability of high quality, printable materials has meant that the market for medical sensors is increasingly being served by large, roll-to-roll production units able to manufacture relatively low-cost devices.
This has stimulated the rise of mass-scale contract manufacturing in the sector, particularly for SMEs, the conference was told.
However, in its fast expansion in the healthcare market in Europe, the sensors sector is subject to tough regulations governing areas staffed by healthcare professionals and managers whose priority is proven quality, safety and efficacy. Regulatory compliance is essential for commercial success.
New European Union regulations on medical devices and in-vitro diagnostics due to come into effect in the next few years will harmonize the quality and safety standards of medical sensors across Europe.
Medical Sensors
Currently, medical sensors are used predominantly in the treatment of the major chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disorders and respiratory conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Blood glucose monitoring has the largest share in the biosensors’ medical applications segment, with its market size predicted to exceed $15 billion by 2024, Peacock told the meeting.
Sensor technologies are now able to measure relatively accurately and reliably a widening range of substances in the human body. This is boosting the development of technologies and data analysis methods enabling the scope of monitoring to be extended across many diseases. Some companies, on the other hand, are using these new technologies to build specialist platforms for the provision of sensors covering different aspects of the same disease.
There has been a big increase, for example, in gas sensors able to provide breath analysis in the treatment of gastrointestinal, metabolic, inflammatory and respiratory conditions, Raghu Das, IDTechEx chief executive, said at the conference.
In the last 10 years, the number of clinical trials on breath analysis devices had risen around sevenfold.
Jurryt Vellinga, chief executive of the Dutch company ItoM, a specialist in medical device development, gave details at the meeting of a sensor system measuring breathing patterns in and around the diaphragm.
This could be used for overnight monitoring of the 40% of child asthma sufferers with poorly controlled or severe forms of the disease. The sensor can detect early signals in breathing patterns to stop asthma attacks.
‘’It is a preventive system which results in fewer cases of hospitalization of young asthma patients,’’ said Vellinga.
UK-based Applied Nanodetectors has developed a gas sensor which provides a handheld breath test system to be used by clinicians and patients for early detection of COPD and asthma exacerbations.
It satisfies “an unmet need for non-invasive, simple tests that can diagnose and monitor these conditions accurately,’’ managing director Victor Higgs said.
The company’s nano-based sensor array can react to a wide range of volatile target gas molecules. Its nanotechnology enables it to be “x 1000 cheaper and x 100 smaller than conventional technology,’’ according to Higgs.
“(There’s) hundreds of biomarkers in exhaled breath,’’ he said. “We aim to become a world leader in point- of- care exhaled breath diagnostics for home management of chronic conditions. Our handheld breath test will give users rapid diagnosis and personalized treatment in less than 1 minute.”
The German Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Systems and Device Technology (IISB) has developed a screen-printed sensor for monitoring exercise-induced sweat for the detection of excess ammonia showing physical stress. For the moment it is for use by non-specialists.
“(It’s) cheap, small, portable and capable of being used by semi-skilled operators,’’ explained Alicia Zoerner, an IISB research scientist, adding the institute is now working on improvements based on textile-integrated hardware for real-time analysis and adaption for new applications.
An increasing number of sensor developers are focusing on continuous temperature measurement.
“Temperature is the only vital sign not continuously monitored, outside of the intensive care unit where invasive ( measurement systems) are used,’’ said Matthew Ream, executive VP marketing and innovations, Blue Spark Technologies, Westlake, OH. “(Our TempTraq sensor system) solves this problem with a clinically tested non-invasive solution giving clinicians information to improve patient outcomes by detecting fever faster than the current standard of care.’’
This means that the onset of conditions like sepsis or neutropenic fever caused by lower infection-fighting white blood cells is caught sooner. Mortality from sepsis, for example, increases 8% for every hour treatment is delayed, Ream said.
Another innovation is diversification in sensor locations on the human body. Cosinuss GmbH, Munich, Germany, has introduced a sensor system sited in the ear canal which can measure heart rate, body temperature, breathing rate, blood pressure and other indicators.
“In-ear vital sign monitoring is the best choice for health data collection,’’ said chief executive Johannes Kreuzer.
A relatively new medical area for sensors is measuring stress through the monitoring with wearables of a variety of indicators like heart rate variability, respiration, electronic activity on the skin, pulse rate and sleep quality, explained Sudhir Mulpuru of the industrial and healthcare business unit of Maxim International, San Jose, CA.
“Stress is the number one cause of chronic health issues,’’ he continued. “It can lead to stress exhaustion, which if it is not treated can kill you.’’
However, the effectiveness of stress-focused sensor systems like Maxim’s relies a lot on the standard of the analytics of the data from the different indicators. This, in turn, depends on the quality of the signals from the sensors, which can be impeded by levels of interference or noise.
A characteristic of future sensor systems will be their ability to provide data from multiple sources. “The quality of the data will be vital for the effectiveness of algorithms and a key factor in data quality will be the signal to noise ratio,’’ said Mulpuru. “The lower the ratio the greater the chance of commercial success.’’
European Editor Sean Milmo is an Essex, UK-based writer specializing in coverage of the chemical industry.