Cambridge, UK – 11 March 2021 – BIOS Health has partnered with the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, the UK's leading heart and lung hospital, and the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in a study seeking out the risk factors for pulmonary arterial hypertension. BIOS’ remote patient monitoring technology will enable the collection of continuous health data from their patients and AI-powered insights on patterns in their cardiac and mobility data. 

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Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), is a chronic cardiorespiratory condition caused by changes within the arteries within the lungs primarily found in younger people. It results in high blood pressure, and in severe cases can lead to heart failure. Whilst some patients who suffer from PAH appear to have a genetic predisposition, in many the cause of the disease is unknown. The National Cohort Study of Idiopathic and Heritable PAH aims to better understand the causes and potential treatments for this condition by studying a cohort of patients with the disease over a number of years. 

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BIOS will track the mobility and cardiac activity of a number of patients taking part in the study using wearable devices. This means a large quantity of data can be collected as the trial participant goes about their daily life. BIOS’ machine learning software will analyse this data to give an overview of their mobility, fitness and heart performance over time and how patterns in the data relate to patients’ individual forms of PAH and their long term outcomes. 

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The company's aim in future studies is to combine data collected from wearables with BIOS’ unique neural technology, that can understand and sequence neural code, in order to develop AI-powered neural treatments for chronic disease. Neural interfaces can be used to form a direct connection with the neurons around the heart and other organs, which offers a whole new class of treatments for cardiovascular disease. In the majority of cardiac conditions, the role of the nervous system is known to be a major factor in the disease but is poorly understood. For cardiac medicine as a whole, if we develop the understanding to decode and encode these neural signals in real time, we can treat chronic illnesses in an effective, automated, and personalised way. 

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Emil Hewage, CEO & Co-founder of BIOS said: “Through our partnership with the Royal Papworth Hospital and the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, BIOS can develop an understanding of the impacts and risk factors of chronic cardiorespiratory diseases on health which could result in life-changing treatments. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has made it more important to be able to carry out studies like this remotely, without sacrificing the quality of data gathered from patients. The BIOS remote monitoring platform can support clinicians in tracking health metrics and  patient surveys in one platform powered by our own  datasets and biomarkers identified through our extensive neural research.  At a time when COVID-19 is highlighting the fragility of health for those with chronic diseases, we are proud to be launching new initiatives that have the potential to create vastly more powerful treatments and preventions, and therefore reduce the number of people at high risk in the long-term.” 

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Mark Toshner MD MRCP, University Lecturer at the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine and Honorary Consultant Papworth Hospital NHS Trust said: