In 2020, Philips bought BioTelemetry, a medtech giant that remotely tracks more than a million cardiac patients annually using wearable heart monitors.

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG) is making another advance into high technology cardiac diagnostics with its acquisition of Cardiologs, a France-based medical technology company that uses AI and cloud technology for cardiac diagnostics. Philips said the acquisition, the terms of which were not disclosed, was an excellent fit with its existing cardiac care portfolio. (Fierce Biotech)

Cardiologs AI diagnostics

Cardiologs’ innovative arrhythmia diagnostic software is cloud-based, vendor-neutral and powered by artificial Intelligence.

The company’s AI algorithms are clinically vetted, CE-marked and FDA-cleared and can detect over 20 types of arrhythmia events. They are based on deep learning technology that interprets the entire ECG of the patient, and handle multiple abnormalities and complex patterns at once (similar in functioning to the human brain).

The company used over 20 million recordings to train its delineation Deep Neural Network to segment different electrical waves (P, QRS, T).

As a result , physicians’ analysis time is cut by half.

“Cardiologs’ technology accelerates diagnostic reporting, decreases the occurrence of reporting errors and streamlines clinician workflow and patient care, empowering clinicians to deliver expert cardiac care faster and more efficiently,” said a Philips statement.

Cardiologs raised $15 million in a Series A round in January 2020. The round was led by the Parisian venture capital firm Alven, with additional backing from Bpifrance, ISAI, Kurma Diagnostics, Idinvest Partners and Paris Saclay Seed Fund.

Philips cardiac solutions

“Philips’ global footprint can accelerate the availability of Cardiologs’ technology to patients all over the world and further deliver on the quadruple aim of an improved patient care experience, better health outcomes, improved staff experience, and lower cost of care,” said Roy Jakobs, Chief Business Leader Connected Care at Royal Philips.

Approximately 70 Cardiologs employees, largely comprising software engineers and data scientists with expertise in AI and deep learning algorithms, will join Philips and expand the company’s continued AI-focused innovation activities.

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