OBS Medical was formed on 24^th March 2000 as a spin out from Oxford University, initially called Oxford Biosignals it developed signal processing solutions for the healthcare sector and algorithms for monitoring jet engines. The business was merged with t+ Medical (formerly e-San) another Oxford spin out in 2010, to offer a range of solutions for in hospital monitoring , telehealth, telecare and clinical trials. The range of well known product brands includes Visensia, t+ diabetes, BiQT and mPRO.

The founder Lionel Tarassenko hosted an evening at Oxford University during a recent sales conference to mark the expansion of the sales team in the USA region at which the 10 years of OBS was celebrated. Current CEO, James Otter, said  he was very pleased with the new merged company and looked forward to more exciting opportunities in the next 10 years.

For more information please contact OBS Medical, info@obsmedical.com, UK +44 (0)1235 432050: US +1 919 969 9839.

Note to editors:

1. OBS Medical is an organisation focussed on improving patient outcomes through real time monitoring.  The company’s product offerings cover the whole range of health care environments from acute hospital wards to the home with benefits including reduced hospital admissions and length of stay, improved management of Long Term Conditions and improved quality of life for patients.

Abingdon, UK -  18^th March 2010.  OBS Medical is delighted to announce that Depomed Inc have selected mPRO^tm to provide a Patient Recorded Outcome system for their Breeze 3 study.  The decision by Depomed starts a new relationship with OBS Medical and and further develops an exciting initiative to use mobile phones to record patient outcomes.  The award marks a major milestone for OBS Medical in extending the use of mPRO^tm from phase 2 studies into a large scale, phase 3 clinical trial.

The Breeze 3 study is a phase 3 trial of Sereda^tm, an investigational formulation of Gabapentin for the treatment of Hot Flashes in post menopausal women

mPRO^tm provides a unique yet practical method of gathering electronic patient reported data on a mobile phone.  mPRO^tm has been used in a number of clinical studiers to date involving several hundred subjects. mPRO^tm enables researchers and their staff to review and analyse real time information.  It can also be a quick and effective communication tool with trial subjects.

Fully customisable diaries, using adaptive branch logic are down loaded to mobile phones.  Subjects answer diary questions via their mobile phone and the data is automatically sent wirelessly to a secure server.  Researchers and staff can instantly access subjects’ real-time information and begin to quantify and qualify study trends and analysis.

“mPRO^tm offers significant advantages over traditional methods of collecting information from trial subjects” says Alex Orsinski, Director, Business Development “The setup and roll out of questionnaires to subjects is fast, meaning that studies can commence more quickly and finish sooner.  Mobile phones provide a familiar and easy to use interface which boosts compliance rates, and the system offers real time information as a study progress, which means that study coordinators and researches can quickly see what is happening through the trial”

For more information please contact OBS Medical, sales@obsmedical.com, UK +44 (0)1235 432050: US +1 919 969 9839.

Note to editors:

1. Depomed Inc is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on enhancing pharmaceutical products. Since its founding in August 1995, the company has advanced two products to market and has developed a pipeline with late-stage product opportunities intended to address common medical conditions affecting large patient populations.
2. OBS Medical is an organisation focussed on improving patient outcomes through real time monitoring.  The company’s product offerings cover the whole range of health care environments from acute hospital wards to the home with benefits including reduced hospital admissions and length of stay, improved management of Long Term Conditions and improved quality of life for patients.

OBS Medical is delighted to announce the appointment of James Otter as Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

After a career in international marketing and management at Zeneca Agrochemicals (formerly ICI and now Syngenta) he has led a range of smaller engineering and bioscience companies. As a main board director of Spectris plc he led their largest subsidiary, specializing in sound and vibration instrumentation in Denmark. Since then he has led a range of bioscience companies, most recently Hallmarq which specialises in veterinary MRI.  He chairs Hygea VCT which specialises in young bioscience companies.  James has an MA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge, an MBA from INSEAD and speaks fluent French.

Richard Moon, chairman of OBS Medical said, “the board is delighted to welcome James to the company, after the recent merger of Oxford BioSignals and t+ Medical his experience and leadership are ideally matched to the very exciting opportunity in front of OBS Medical”.

Joining the company formally at the beginning of March, James Otter said, “I am delighted to be appointed as CEO of OBS Medical.  The healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors represent an exciting environment for a company with such innovative products and services.  Innovation is needed to address the twin demands of cost reduction and improving health outcomes and OBS Medical can clearly do a great deal to help.  It’s a very exciting prospect”.

The previously separate but co-located companies, each with its origins in Oxford University, have come together in a long anticipated merger.  The convergence of technology and developments in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors makes the merger of the two businesses a natural and highly complementary change.

OBS Medical will now expand its unique range of real-time monitoring products for secondary care (vital signs), primary care (long term conditions) and pharmaceutical trials and drug development.  The company is in an exciting field where its innovative products are able to address its customers’ demands for improved health outcomes and lower costs.

With its head office at Abingdon, Oxfordshire and US operations in Indianapolis and North Carolina the company is able to work with the world’s leading authorities and companies in their respective fields to bring its proven evidence based innovation to its customers.

The new company will continue the previous two companies’ propensity to collaborate with partners around the world who share the same vision and passion for excellence.

For further information contact:

Or email: info@obsmedical.com

Web: http://www.obsmedical.com

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8563000/8563621.stm

Read the BBC article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8562830.stm

t+ blood pressure lite is the latest in a range of products from UK based t+ Medical, which uses the mobile phone or internet to monitor and manage health conditions. The use of t+ blood pressure lite enables health care professionals to monitor their patient’s blood pressure without the inconvenience of having to visit the surgery each time.

GP Dan Lasserson from Jericho Health Centre, Oxford said

Improving our diagnosis and management of hypertension is key to reducing the burden of cardiovascular disease. The BP lite system will allow us to make decisions much more accurately and it is more convenient for patients. Embracing new technology is essential for modern primary care so that we can work together with our patients to prevent the major diseases that cause disability and shorten life expectancy.

The system has already been trialed, and is continuing to be used by the Stroke Prevention Research Unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. It was found that home monitoring of patients blood pressure using t+ blood pressure lite was feasible in most patients following a mini-stroke (TIA), irrespective of age, and patient satisfaction was high. The home monitoring was able to identify masked hypertension and led to improved blood pressure control.

Business Development Director at t+ Medical Rob Halhead said:

t+ blood pressure lite is another example of our innovation. Our purpose is to use everyday technology which is familiar, cost effective and easy for patients to use to enable the NHS to deliver radically improved healthcare outcomes and at significantly lower cost. We take a collaborative approach with us wherever we go and we’re delighted with the improvements we’re helping our NHS colleagues to deliver in Oxfordshire.

For further information contact  01235 432050, or email info@tplusmedical.com

Last year we did the London 10K run in aid of diabetes UK, but when we saw that one of our patients who uses the t+ diabetes system was cycling from London to Paris in aid of charity it seemed a good idea to sponsor him instead!

Diabetes UK is calling on all eager cyclists to put on their helmets and sign up for its very first London to Paris Cycle Challenge. The exciting event, taking place from 11th to 13th September this year, will raise much-needed funds to help people with diabetes and vital research projects.

So, well done to Martin McAndrew for taking the plunge and putting himself forwards for this great sporting and charity event. Martin along with thousands of others will cycle approximately 195 miles over three days from England’s buzzing capital to the heart of Paris.
If you too would like to sponsor Martin please visit his just giving site at:

http://www.justgiving.com/martinmcandrew/

“To receive a record number of entries into the Mira Awards competition and to see so many technology-related companies thriving—particularly during the current national economic downturn—is a real testament to the strength of Indiana’s tech sector,” said Jim Jay, president and CEO of TechPoint. “The Mira Awards recognize the achievements of some outstanding performers and contributors.”

OBS Medical provides innovative clinical algorithms such as BioQT, an advanced signal processing technique. BioQT generates an efficient and accurate measurement of ECG QT interval, T wave morphology and other cardiac safety parameters assessed during drug trials.; It is a thorough and efficient way to produce accurate cardiac safety profiles for new and existing drugs. OBS Medical recently conducted an industry-first cardiac safety study in which BioQT high-throughput analytical platform was used to prospectively analyze QT and T wave morphology changes for a drug compound. BioQT data was among the information used by the FDA to allow the drug to move into its next phase of development.

Consulting Chief Medical Officer Jay W. Mason, M.D. has been instrumental in the development and refinement of BioQT. As a result, OBS Medical is poised to take its cardiac safety solutions to the next level. OBS Medical will be participating in the upcoming DIA conferences – “Cardiovascular Safety, QT and Arrhythmia in Drug Development” in Bethesda and the 45th Annual Meeting in San Diego. Dr. Mason will present during a session regarding “Automated ECG Analysis” on April 30 in Bethesda.

“We are honored to be recognized by the respected Mira Awards,” says OBS Medical’s Chief Operating Officer, Wayne Nethercutt. To be recognized a second time for another OBS patient safety algorithm technology demonstrates the abilities of the R&D team through their collaborative work with Oxford University to develop influential medical technologies.  In 2007, the Visensia® hospital patient safety technology was also recognized by the Mira Awards and OBS Medical was named a top finalist for the “Health & Life Sciences Gazelle Company Award”. “We are very pleased by the clinical and scientific recognition our BioQT and Visensia patient safety technologies have received. Our recent organization changes enable us to focus on commercialization activities for our current products in the US while our R&D team continues to enhance these products and develop new algorithm technologies with Oxford University in the UK,” says Nethercutt.

About OBS Medical

OBS Medical is based in Carmel, Indiana and provides innovative clinical algorithms for safer hospitals, safer patients and safer drugs. Based on intelligent algorithms such as neural networks, data fusion and ECG waveform recognition, OBS Medical technologies cover a range of medical applications including automated early crisis warning (Visensia®), automated assessment of ECG waveforms including QT interval measurement and morphology tracking (BioQT™), and EEG analysis for brain-state assessment. OBS Medical is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oxford BioSignals Ltd. based in Oxford, UK, which was originally spun out from Oxford University.

Contact:

info@obsmedical.com

Commiserations to all those who entered but did not win.

RPM, a rapidly growing category of healthcare, enables medical professionals and caregivers to monitor and manage patients in real-time as they go about their daily lives. Drawing on more than 10 years as a leading innovator in continuous ambulatory monitoring, VivoMetrics is developing a next-generation LifeShirt for RPM, a comfortable and patient-friendly “smart garment” that continuously collects and wirelessly transmits vital sign data to healthcare providers regardless of a patient’s location or activity.

To assist healthcare providers using this data to make decisions regarding care or follow up, VivoMetrics is partnering with OBS Medical to adapt their automated hospital early warning technology for use with the next generation LifeShirt for RPM. Recognized by Frost and Sullivan as a 2008 North American Technology Innovation award winner, OBS Medical’s Visensia hospital patient safety suite fuses data from multiple vital signs into a numerical index of a patient’s wellness. When the index reaches or surpasses a set threshold, an alert is triggered, indicating a patient may be at greater risk of deterioration. By adapting and extending this technology to remote patient monitoring, the two companies aim to enable telehealth providers to proactively intervene in patient care to help reduce the rate of emergency room visits and hospital admissions.

“Our population is growing older and experiencing increasing rates of chronic disease, while at the same time we are faced with a growing shortage of healthcare providers,” said Howard Baker, president and chief executive officer of VivoMetrics. “VivoMetrics and OBS Medical have been independently creating innovative solutions to address both the increasing demand for and rising cost of care created by these trends. It made complete sense for us to work together to help fulfill the promise of remote patient monitoring to improve quality of care and reduce costs. Our mutual goal is to provide caregivers with continuous insights into a patient’s well-being, enabling them to make informed, proactive decisions leading to better health.”

“We are delighted to ‘join forces’ with VivoMetrics on this project,” said Wayne Nethercutt, chief operating officer of OBS Medical. “We’ve had great success with helping hospitals optimize clinical resources and improve patient safety. With this partnership, we can extend these benefits to an even broader healthcare audience to ensure patients receive the highest quality care possible with the most efficient use of healthcare resources.”

About VivoMetrics

VivoMetrics, Inc., founded in 1999 and based in Ventura, Calif., specializes in continuous ambulatory monitoring through the use of its proprietary LifeShirt® technology, enabling healthcare professionals and researchers to obtain a complete, real-time picture of a patient’s physiological status in ambulatory and home settings. A wearable, completely non-invasive “smart garment,” LifeShirt® monitors vital life-sign functions such as heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, body position, activity level and skin temperature which, when monitored and reviewed in relation to one another, provide the most complete, real-time picture of a patient’s physiologic status available today in an ambulatory form factor. VivoMetrics has supported research and clinical trials using LifeShirt® at nearly 300 leading research and academic institutions across a wide range of disease states, including sleep disordered breathing, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cystic fibrosis. For more information, visit www.lifeshirt.com.

About OBS Medical

OBS Medical is based in Carmel, Indiana and provides innovative clinical algorithms for safer hospitals, safer patients and safer drugs. Based on intelligent algorithms such as neural networks, data fusion and ECG waveform recognition, OBS Medical technologies cover a range of medical applications including automated early crisis warning (Visensia®), automated assessment of ECG waveforms including QT interval measurement and morphology tracking (BioQT™), and EEG analysis for brain-state assessment. OBS Medical is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oxford BioSignals Ltd. based in Oxford, UK, which was originally spun out from Oxford University. To learn more, visit www.obsmedical.com.

Forward-looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including but not limited to, those that refer to the company’s future development plans. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated due to numerous business, market and financial risk factors. Products referenced in this release as in development are not currently available for sale nor have they been submitted to the FDA for review and market clearance. The forward-looking statements in this press release represent our current views as of today and we disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the future.