Company Profile: Aktiia

Hypertension is known to be one of the most prevalent chronic health conditions globally, with an estimated 1.4 billion individuals suffering from the condition worldwide (circa 20% of the global adult population). Known as the ‘silent killer’, due to commonly presenting without symptoms, it is the number one risk factor associated with death, as well as cardiovascular diseases, including heart attacks and strokes. 

Cardiovascular disease is known to be the number one cause of preventable deaths worldwide. Despite the latest innovations in healthcare in the 21st century, control rates of hypertension are declining, and it is consistently recognised as a major public health concern. One contributing factor is the reliance on decades-old technologies, such as traditional blood pressure cuffs, to diagnose individuals and assess treatment effects. 

With all of this established knowledge, there is a clear need for modern, patient-friendly technology that allows us to change our understanding of blood pressure by facilitating collection of data continuously, passively, and over the long-term, providing a comprehensive understanding of BP to individuals and healthcare providers, so as to inform personalised clinical decisions, rather than the current ‘one size fits all’ approach. Completely novel and unique blood pressure data sets of this kind facilitate and empower life sciences researchers, helping them to gain insights into new aspects of blood pressure across myriad conditions, medicines, and health outcomes.   

Aktiia was founded in Switzerland in May 2018 from a passion to create a new tool to revolutionise diagnosis and treatment of hypertension. Aktiia’s founders, Dr Mattia Bertschi (CEO) and Dr Josep Solà (CTO), contributed to research and development at the Swiss research institute CSEM for almost two decades before Aktiia was formed. For 18 years, they worked incessantly to decipher the language of the heart and vascular signals to deepen understanding of their relationship to blood pressure. Aktiia's diverse team of over 50 extraordinary people has been fundamental in transforming these years of innovative research into a global healthcare tool.

Aktiia’s technology is the first to combine photoplethsmogryphy (PPG) optical sensors and proprietary clinically validated algorithms to accurately measure blood pressure at the wrist. Extensively validated for accuracy, the Aktiia 24/7 Blood Pressure Monitor is the first optical wearable device to be granted CE Mark approval as a Class IIa Medical Device in the non-invase blood pressure monitor category. The device has received worldwide recognition, enabling Aktiia to proudly offer the most complete and user-friendly blood pressure companion to date. With over 18 million deaths per year thought to be as a result of hypertension, the company’s mission is to overhaul the way blood pressure is thought about.

Today, Aktiia’s clinically validated, medical-grade technology supports a range of public healthcare initiatives, hypertension programmes, and blood pressure research initiatives across a range of therapy areas, including cardiovascular, respiratory, rare disease, CNS, metabolic diseases, chronic conditions, sleep, nutrition, pain, stress management, and many more. Aktiia blood pressure datasets continuously provide new insights into the true role of blood pressure, in a patient-friendly way, in order to optimise cardiovascular health and the associated outcomes, at the level of both individual patients and large scale cohorts.

Aktiia's CE-marked device is currently available to the public in seven European markets and has approval as a medical device in over 40 countries worldwide. Built on 20+ years of research, Aktiia's technology empowers patients, researchers, and clinicians with unique blood pressure data, paving the way for novel understanding and personalised patient care, including previously unavailable health metrics, such as blood pressure time in target range (TTR) and cumulative blood pressure load.

With over 300 million data points from over 70,000 users across the globe, Aktiia’s continuous blood pressure dataset is ever growing, creating numerous opportunities for deep learning in public health trends and patterns by which to advance understanding of blood pressure and provide predictive insights on a global scale.

The pathophysiology of blood pressure is well established, and it is understood that the more time a person’s BP is out of the optimal range, the greater the likelihood is of damage to underlying organ systems, tissues, and cells throughout the body, increasing inflammatory risk, damage, and the chance for negative health outcomes.

Aktiia’s perspective is that the traditional ‘spot check’ methodology (in mm Hg only) of monitoring blood pressure is inadequate to represent BP and its risks to the body, and that healthcare and research should think about BP over long periods of time, consistent with the way BP causes death and disease. Continuous BP monitoring in a patient-centric interface is uniquely suited for this approach, also facilitating better assessment of the effects of treatment pathways, medication titration, and lifestyle changes. A continuous, longitudinal approach also empowers the individual with knowledge of their own data, promoting engagement and education regarding the importance of blood pressure and the role it plays in their health.

Our technology provides accurate blood pressure and heart rate measurements passively in multiple body positions, not affected by hydrostatic pressure perturbations nor demographic factors, facilitating longitudinal blood pressure data collection in any setting.

On average, Aktiia devices collect 27 blood pressure measurements per day, and a recent study found that 96% of patients prefer wearing the Aktiia bracelet than a traditional cuff. The modality of passive measurements significantly lessens the chances of known phenomena such as white coat and masked hypertension. Across it’s customer base of 70,000+ users, Aktiia has seen significant engagement, with more than 70% of users still active after 3 months of usage, with the companion app opened an average of 3 times per day: impressive engagement statistics when compared with other modern digital health technologies (DHTs).
 

Combining the accuracy of a cuff with extensive longitudinal data presents new perspectives and insight into blood pressure trends, from patient to population.

Individual blood pressure trends can be analysed, including novel and powerful data aggregations like TTR, which has shown to be a strong predictor of BP-related risk. Aggregating these individual datasets across larger cohorts enables investigations into BP changes before, during, and after therapeutic or digital interventions, and the extent of the role BP plays as a risk factor or measure of disease progression across any condition, or simply as a safety signal.

These novel datasets have the opportunity to truly unlock insights with a modern data-centric approach to research and healthcare. 

Aktiia works with many global types of organisation, including:

• Private healthcare - Managing patients’ blood pressure more effectively with 24/7 BP devices for clinics or hospitals
• Digital healthcare - Aktiia’s novel technology is proven and reliable in remote care and telehealth initiatives
• Public healthcare referral partner – Allowing patients the chance to own an Aktiia device at a discount
• Biopharma – Collecting 24/7 BP data and trends as exploratory endpoints across a range of therapeutic areas 
• Academic research – Investigating the extent of BP as a risk factor or measure of progression in any number of conditions
• Workplace health – Performing hypertension screening to ensure the workforce is on top of their health

“As the principal investigator of Aktiia’s pivotal clinical trial, I am pleased that the result of our study shows that Aktiia solution is accurate and allows patients and physicians to track their blood pressure daily. I believe the Aktiia solution has the potential to change the management of hypertension.”

-    Professor Grégoire Wuerzner, principal investigator of the pivotal validation studies, CHUV, Switzerland

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