Alexandre Boulanger is best know for constructing self-balancing exoskeletons at Wandercraft. For his subsequent trick the Paris-based robotics entrepreneur is fronting work on a far lighter form of wearable: An arm-worn patch for monitoring continual kidney illness (CKD). The medtech startup — Metyos — the place Boulanger is CEO, is a joint effort: Co-founded with CTO Olga Chashchina, who holds a PhD in biomedical engineering the place she gained specific experience with biosensors that’s important to what the pair are cooking up right here.
In recent times there’s been an explosion of curiosity in biowearables pushed by developments just like the commercialization of steady glucose displays (CGMs) for diabetes administration. On the identical time rising prices of healthcare provision has elevated stress on providers to search out smarter methods to deal with costly points like continual illness administration, with out compromising high quality of service. Biowearables provide a possible route to assist sq. this circle for a variety of continual well being circumstances.
Metyos’ objective is to construct comparable arm-worn (semi-invasive) real-time sensing tech as is already established for diabetes administration, so which may additionally detect chemical modifications in fluids slightly below the pores and skin, however which is targeted on monitoring biomarkers linked to continual kidney situation. It desires its biowearables to be prescribed by medical doctors as a part of a distant remedy administration package deal for sufferers — suggesting the method may assist medical doctors remotely spot warning indicators linked to renal failure and hyperkalemia.
For sufferers, the objective is to empower them to turn into a extra energetic participant in their very own care — by providing suggestions (reminiscent of weight loss program) and higher understanding of CKD by way of the app. So the startup is taking a dual-sided method which goals to deliver data-driven insights to medical doctors and sufferers, each. Which appears to be like sensible and mandatory: If cellular tech has achieved something it’s given customers an expectation of gaining access to data and being stored knowledgeable.
The startup says its biowearable will monitor ions and minerals that may construct up within the blood stream when kidney perform is affected, sending knowledge to an app on the consumer’s smartphone, by way of Bluetooth. From there the tech can be designed to relay consumer knowledge to Metyos’ safe server within the cloud the place well being professionals monitoring the affected person’s situation can entry it and remotely monitor illness development.
The staff began work on Metyos again in 2021, with the assistance of “some love cash” and a public grant, as Boulanger tells it. To this point they’ve constructed a prototype of the biowearable and performed some bench exams.
They’ve simply closed a pre-seed spherical of €2.3 million (~$2.5M) to fund the following stage of growth which can entail working medical trials to additional consider and refine the expertise. Lead traders within the spherical embrace Cenitz, Bpifrance and KIMA Ventures.
Being a medtech startup Boulanger confirms Metyos gained’t deliver its tech to market with out regulatory approval — which he says it’s focusing on by the tip of 2025. By way of goal markets, the staff are specializing in Europe (particularly their dwelling market of France) and the US. Usually, the main target is markets the place distant affected person monitoring reimbursements exist and/or are being developed, per Boulanger.
How did the serial enterpreneur give you the thought for this startup? “I had gained loads of weight so I grew to become focused on vitamin monitoring and by extension, in biochemistry monitoring,” he tells For Millionaires.
On the identical time Boulanger’s co-founder, Chashchina, was coping with a continual well being situation. So when the pair met their pursuits aligned on the thought of constructing a biowearable. “She has to do loads of blood attracts and wished a instrument to assist her with the every day administration of her situation,” he notes. “So we began with the consumer/affected person viewpoint on biowearables and we partnered early with medical doctors to refine the medical wants.”
The startup’s objective is to develop a sensing wearable that may enhance well being outcomes for CKD sufferers and monetary outcomes for the healthcare system by enabling distant organic monitoring of sufferers with the continual situation.
Metyos cites statistics which recommend there are greater than 800 million CKD sufferers globally.
“CKD is without doubt one of the main continual ailments when it comes to prevalence, mortality and price. It’s a progressive illness with no treatment (however many therapies for the related circumstances) so it may be essential for sufferers to decelerate or cease the development of the illness,” says Boulanger. “We predict distant monitoring permits us to anticipate opposed occasions, enabling clinicians to make well timed medical selections and sufferers to be extra concerned each day in their very own care.”
“We’ll begin with end-stage sufferers with hyperkalemia points and lengthen our scope right down to earlier stage sufferers,” he provides.
Metyos is at an early stage however there’s burgeoning curiosity in biowearables so competitors within the house is rising. However its give attention to CKD units its other than quite a lot of wearable rivals. Boulanger lists 5 startups as its primary rivals: Biolinq, Alio, Protonintel, Kalium Health and Renalyse — the latter two additionally give attention to kidney circumstances however of their case affected person monitoring is predicated on at-home blood attracts, quite than real-time knowledge being pulled from a biowearable.
