Small Business Innovation Research Program Provides Seed Funding for R&D
Philadelphia, PA, August 13, 2020 – Strados Labs has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for $224,470 to conduct research and development (R&D) work on a smart wearable platform for remote respiratory monitoring: building better technologies for telemedicine in the age of COVID-19.
This leading-edge technology from Strados Labs is used to record patient lung sounds that can then be made available for playback or transmitted to telehealth workers to be monitored for changes in status. The Strados System’s respiratory solution consists of a small, lightweight acoustic sensor array that records lung sounds and uploads them to a digital clinician portal. Once the device has recorded the patient’s lung sounds, the clinician is able to access them remotely at any time for analysis. The SBIR grant is intended to bolster the company’s lung sound acquisition capabilities, enabling machine-learning algorithms to highlight any changes in respiratory patterns for physician analysis.
“NSF is proud to support the technology of the future by thinking beyond incremental developments and funding the most creative, impactful ideas across all markets and areas of science and engineering,” said Andrea Belz, Division Director of the Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships at NSF. “With the support of our research funds, any deep technology startup or small business can guide basic science into meaningful solutions that address tremendous needs.”
“Receiving this grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will be instrumental in helping us bring our innovative electronic stethoscope to the patients and clinicians who need it most,” said Nicholas Delmonico, CEO of Strados Labs. “There are currently no effective ways to capture abnormal patient lung sounds remotely, putting patients at risk between rounds and face-to-face doctors’ visits. This grant will help us change that.”
“The electronic stethoscope will play an important role in improving patient care in hospital and clinical environments by allowing early automated detection of respiratory diseases in real time”, said Strados Labs advisor Dr. Picone, Professor and Director of the Institute for Signal and Information Processing at Temple University. “The technology, based on state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, has the potential to significantly reduce the time to a diagnosis, which is a critical factor in mitigating the spread of disease in healthcare settings.”
Once a small business is awarded a Phase I SBIR/STTR grant (up to $256,000), it becomes eligible to apply for a Phase II grant (up to $1,000,000). Small businesses with Phase II grants are eligible to receive up to $500,000 in additional matching funds with qualifying third-party investment or sales.
Startups or entrepreneurs who submit a three-page Project Pitch will know within three weeks if they meet the program’s objectives to support innovative technologies that show promise of commercial and/or societal impact and involve a level of technical risk. Small businesses with innovative science and technology solutions, and commercial potential are encouraged to apply. All proposals submitted to the NSF SBIR/STTR program, also known as America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF, undergo a rigorous merit-based review process. To learn more about America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF, visit: https://seedfund.nsf.gov/
About Strados Labs
Strados Labs enables clinicians to enhance the management of respiratory health across the patient’s transition from the hospital to home. The Strados System objectively evaluates respiratory health allowing providers to remotely access at-risk patients using a novel biosensor. Please visit www.stradoslabs.com to learn more.
If you would like more information about the RESP platform for clinical research or pilots, please call Alexis Taylor at (410) 929-6552, or email alexis@stradoslabs.com.
About the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Programs
America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF awards $200 million annually to startups and small businesses, transforming scientific discovery into products and services with commercial and societal impact. Startups working across almost all areas of science and technology can receive up to $1.75 million to support research and development (R&D), helping de-risk technology for commercial success. America’s Seed Fund is congressionally mandated through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The NSF is an independent federal agency with a budget of about $8.1 billion that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering.