The Engineer

Anaxsys secures funding to market respiratory system

News

Anaxsys, a Surrey-based medical device company, has secured a £1m investment to accelerate the commercialisation of a novel respiratory system based on its patented sensor technology.

The investors that participated in the funding include South East Growth Fund, Early Advantage Partnership and a number of business angels. Anaxsys has received £5.7m of funding to date, including £700,000 in grants.

Having consulted and collaborated with clinicians and other healthcare professionals, the engineers at Anaxsys identified that there was an unmet clinical need for respiratory rate monitoring, particularly in perioperative environments.

To address that market need, the company has developed a continuous respiratory rate counter called the respiR8 that provides an early indication of patient deterioration. Clinical trials and studies of the device have already confirmed its effectiveness and commercial potential with healthcare professionals.

The system consists of a disposable mask that contains an inexpensive sensor, a computer system and a monitor that provides a digital display of the respiratory rate. A second display screen demonstrates the trend of respiratory rate over the monitoring period. Any significant change in respiratory rate trips an alarm, allowing the healthcare professionals to make an immediate intervention.

The sensor itself responds rapidly and reversibly to moisture in exhaled breath. Since breath is saturated with water at body temperature, as the patient exhales, moisture from the breath condenses on the sensor and a signal is obtained. As the patient inhales, the air flow over the sensor dries off the moisture and the sensor returns to a baseline state. In this way, a series of curves is obtained and the system software can then calculate the breathing rate in breaths per minute.

Deryk Williams, chief executive officer of Anaxsys, said: ’This investment will allow Anaxsys to accelerate the commercialisation of respiR8, our first product to market, and further the development of a range of respiratory devices based on our core sensor technology.’

Anaxsys further announced it has received CE Mark approval for the respiR8 rate counter, which will allow it to fully commercialise the product in the UK and Europe.