Article Excerpt:
TWST: We would like to begin with a brief historical sketch of Medwave and a picture of the things you are doing at the present time.Mr. O'Malley: Medwave was incorporated in 1984 and was started as a typical technology company with great development and R&D ideas, and those ideas turned into our core technology in the late 1990s. We introduced an entry level introductory product in 2002 named the Vasotrac, and this was a product that allowed the clinical community to measure blood pressure in a way that was not done before, which was non- invasively, sensor-based, much quicker, much more accurate, than conventional non-invasive blood pressure cuff technology. From 2002 until just recently, we were involved in quite a number of clinical validation studies at major medical centers, which have all come out with very positive results about how our technology not only performs as well if not better than a blood pressure cuff, but is almost as good as an invasive arterial catheter. The invasive arterial catheter is considered the gold standard for accuracy. So for the last 24 months, we have really turned our R&D engine back on in the company and have been developing new products. We recently introduced one of these new products with our core technology built-in named Primo, which is a point-of-care blood pressure device that addresses a market that has an annual value of about $600 million worldwide.
TWST: What's involved in Primo?
Mr. O'Malley: Primo is a point-of-care or a spot blood pressure monitor.
It is a handheld device, and it literally will wrap around the wrist and
obtain a blood pressure value in about 12 seconds. It is very
comfortable and nonocclusive, therefore never occluding the artery like
a blood pressure cuff, but it's also very accurate. In the clinical
validation study that was completed with Primo, we compared it to an
invasive arterial catheter and it correlated within just a few
percentage points. So it offers the convenience of a handheld device,
the speed that's unmatched in the industry, and it offers the accuracy
that's really unmatched in other non-invasive devices.
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