AirStrip, a mobile healthtech company based in San Antonio, TX, has acquired FDA-approved technology developed by San Diego’s Sense4Baby that enables doctors and other healthcare providers to monitor maternal-fetal vital signs on a smartphone or tablet. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The San Diego-based Gary and Mary West Health Investment Fund put $4 million into Sense4Baby after the startup was spun out from the Gary and Mary West Health Institute. The wireless monitoring technology for high-risk pregnancies was developed in-house at the institute, and Sense4Baby was the first startup to be enrolled in a healthtech incubator Gary and Mary West established in 2012.
The West health investment fund and healthtech incubator are for-profit entities affiliated with the nonprofit West health institute. The telemarketing billionaires Gary and Mary West established all three organizations, along with a nonprofit health policy center, to work together to reduce healthcare costs.
Sense4Baby received clearance to commercialize its technology from the FDA and European regulators in 2013.
AirStrip says patient data from the Sense4Baby system will be integrated with its interoperable mobile technology, called AirStrip ONE, which is capable of transmitting data from multiple sources to caregivers using multiple mobile devices.
In a statement, AirStrip CEO Alan Portela says, “AirStrip pioneered data mobilization in women’s services ten years ago with the first FDA-cleared application that allowed doctors to monitor live data for patients in labor in the hospital setting. As a result, one in six babies born in the U.S. is now monitored using AirStrip ONE in labor and delivery. Now, AirStrip is innovating again by mobilizing waveform data of pregnant patients beyond the four walls of the hospital, expanding the ability to care for patients throughout the obstetrics care continuum.”
