By Jeff Kiger

Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN 

Mayo Clinic is testing a remote health monitor device, or "guardian angel," it developed with a Swiss company that could snag a piece of a multimillion-dollar market.

STMicroelectronics, which has engineers in Rochester working with doctors, is collaborating with Mayo on a device that monitors a patient's heart rate, blood pressure, activity levels and breathing. The goal is to create a device that goes home with patients and tracks their conditions.

One clinical study of the device has already been conducted here, and a second study targeting hospitalized heart patients began Thursday, said Kathy Anderson, a Mayo Clinic spokeswoman. The goal is to enroll 10 patients, Anderson said.

Mayo Clinic and ST do not have a financial relationship connected to the project.

"This is what we consider a co-development or collaboration agreement," Anderson says. "There is no technology license. We hope to take this technology to patients, and ST has been the one to help us create the prototype device."

One patient who used the prototype compares it to a security system strapped to his chest.

"You have somebody right there by you all the time," Clive Kells of Rochester told Mayo Clinic's Medical Edge program.

That could catch problems early and reduce visits to the doctor.

"Depending on the input, we can determine whether the patient needs to see their physician or maybe we'd up their medications to prevent them from having to come into the hospital in the first place," said Dr. Charles Bruce on Mayo Clinic's video. Bruce is helping develop the technology with the Mayo Clinic team of Dr. Paul Friedman, Dr. Virend Somers and engineer Kevin Bennet.

Bruce says he likes to think of the device as "a guardian angel."

Once a final device is fine-tuned, the technology will be patented.

"If there is joint intellectual property between Mayo and ST, there will be a co-patent or license," says Anderson.

Having even half of such a device could prove profitable. Estimates of the telemedicine or health monitoring market by industry experts range between $3.6 billion to $11 billion.

Berg Insight estimated in a recent report that home monitoring could be an option for 300 million people in Europe and the U.S. The report also estimated that the market could grow by 10 percent a year.

Alcatel-Lucent, Philips Electronics, St. Jude's Medical, Medtronic and other companies also are working on some form of remote health monitoring.

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