Casana, a healthcare company based out of Rochester, New York, announced early this week that it has raised $30 million in funding for its smart toilet seat. The company, whose main mission is to provide effortless, in-home healthcare monitoring for patients with chronic disease, will use the money to help pursue Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for their device. The $30 million in new funding comes a year after Casana announced that it had raised $14 million in initial funding.
Casana will pursue FDA clearance for its device called The Heart Seat. The Heart Seat aims to be the first-of-its-kind, commercially available cuffless blood pressure monitor built directly into the toilet seat. The Heart Seat can passively capture heart health parameters, such as blood pressure, for individual monitoring, and overcomes issues with other heart rate monitors which lead to poor patient compliance.
At-home healthcare monitoring is a burgeoning market, and the COVID-19 pandemic has placed added value on the ability to monitor one’s own health from home. In fact, recent studies show that the majority of healthcare and healthcare monitoring is migrating from professional healthcare facilities to individuals’ homes. This migration is beneficial for personal health as it allows for easier access to monitoring devices, a reduction in health care costs, and improved comfort for patients.
Casana aims to join the at-home healthcare monitoring market with its important device. Dr. Jeffrey Leiden, Chairman of the Board of Casana, said, “as healthcare moves from the doctor’s office into the home, convenient home monitoring is becoming increasingly important for patient care.” He continued, “Casana’s Heart Seat holds the unique promise of reliably and conveniently measuring multiple health parameters including Blood Pressure, Heart Rate and Oxygen saturation, all in the privacy of the patient’s home.”
Unlike other blood pressure monitoring devices, the Heart Seat is unique in that it takes no effort or behavior changes to measure the health of your heart. One simply needs to use the toilet, as we all do at least once a day, and the Heart Seat will do the rest of the work. Austin McChord, the CEO of Casana, added, “The Heart Seat is different from virtually every other vitals monitoring produce, in that it takes no time out of your day and works best when you forget it’s even there.” The company is already beginning the process of FDA approval and hopes to begin the sale of the Heart Seat towards the end of the year.
Sources: Casana; BioSpace; Casana Heart Seat; Yahoo!; Home Healthcare; Healthline
