Today, advanced sensor solutions for wearable devices based on printed electronics enable real-time monitoring of patients and the collection of a variety of relevant patient data. The technology offers enormous potential while at the same time still posing challenges for developers and manufacturers, related to, for example, functional material formulations, material compatibility or form factor. Remote patient monitoring solutions are worn on the body, measure vital signs and record them. Thus, these wearable devices play an important role in supporting the treatment of diseases and in improving the quality of life, especially for people with chronic diseases. With their extended partnership Henkel and Byteflies are further driving the development of additional innovative remote patient monitoring solutions and contribute to increasing their availability and adoption.
Henkel and Byteflies started their collaboration in 2019 by developing a smart health patch together with Quad Industries and four other partners during the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, the burden on intensive care units in hospitals was high. The novel COVID-19 health patch technologies proved to significantly contribute to time-savings for practioners, reducing the risk of infection and improving the monitoring of health parameters.
Henkel as a leading materials provider has developed the electrodes and conductive inks. Thanks to these innovative materials, the patch can be used for multiple days rather than just one day while keeping signal quality and patient comfort high.
So far, Byteflies has launched three Care@Home solutions: CovidCare@Home, CardioCare@Home for cardiac arrhythmias, and EpiCare@Home for epilepsy. “We have the ambition to become a world leading partner for healthcare providers to make the transition to virtual care,” explained Hans De Clercq, Co-CEO at Byteflies. “Our Care@Home end-to-end solutions leverage the power of remote patient monitoring and real-world data to generate actionable insights for healthcare providers and patients. The extension of our partnership with Henkel will help us to scale the technology beyond our initial beachhead market in Belgium and current Care@Home solutions and deliver the most reliable and user-friendly wearable solutions to patients and professionals.”
“The latest global developments have exerted pressure onto the global healthcare systems,” added Beate Grobben, Head of Business Development EIMEA for printed electronics at Henkel. “We aim to combine our broad Henkel medical product portfolio, development capabilities, manufacturing support and customer insights with our medical ecosystem. Only together we can accelerate the development, industrialization and go-to market of new technology solutions and enable medical professionals to remotely monitor patients – allowing for better patient treatments, shorter hospital stays and most importantly more patient convenience.”