Investors betting Biosign’s chances of success far from remote

Posted by Cantech • March 18, 2011 •Printer-friendly

Radu Leca, Founder and President of Biosign Technologies.

Whenhospital staff at B.C.'s Royal Columbian Hospital were forced totreatoverflow emergency room patients in a crammed Tim Horton's donutshop onenight in late February, the province's Health Minister ColinHansen said it was a sign that the system was working.
"Itdoes happen from time to time that emergency rooms are undertremendousstress because of the number of patients presentingthemselves on thatday," Hansen told the CBC, adding that this was animprovement over pastconditions when "ambulances lined up outsidewaiting to unloadpassengers"
New Democrat health critic Sue Hammell, however, called the situation outrageous. "What are we coming to when we are serving up our health care in a fast food restaurant?” she asked the Globe and Mail.
That night at Royal Columbian Hospital grabbed national headlines in Canada, but it is far from an isolated event. In other parts of Canadaovercrowdingis a trend that some say is getting worse. In the UnitedStates theproblem might have an even higher profile. LA County's USCHospital, was overcrowded 98% of the time last August. In Queens, New York the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center was, last May, also was also forced to place beds in a coffee shop.
Thornhill, Ontario's Biosign Technologies (TSXV:BIO)designsand sells automated systems that take pulse, blood pressure,bloodglucose and oxygen levels online. The Company was formed in 2006andtraded on the CSNX until September of last year, when it gotapproval totrade on the Toronto Venture exchange.
In October, Biosignissued 3.5 million shares to acquire the assetsof Ottawa basedHealthanywhere Inc., a privately privately held eHealthcompany whosesolutions, including a mobile telehealth platform forsmartphones andtouch screen desktop software, have received FDA 510kclearance as ClassII medical devices. Since that time Biosign has begunto makes sales ofHealthanywhere products, most recently to the PeconicBay Medical Center,a 182 bed not-for-profit facility in Long IslandN.Y. Peconic Bay willuse Biosign's technology for remote monitoring ofacute post dischargepatients who have diabetes, cardiovascular diseaseand respiratorydisease.
This type of hybrid solution to healthcare is seeingrapid growth assome believe it can help ease the strain on medicalfacilitiesworldwide, which may be crowded by unnecessary visits. Bostonbased lifescience consulting firm Scientia Advisors says the remotehealthmanagement market (RHM), which include telehealth services and thetypeof remote patient monitoring that Biosign specializes in, isthesmallest, but fastest growing segment of the home healthmanagement(HHM) market.
Scientia projects that RHM will doublefromthe $1.8 billion it represented in 2007 to $3.6 billion next year.HarryGlorikian, a Managing Partner with Scientia says this "growth isdrivenin part by strains in the health care system, high health carecosts,insufficient personnel and an aging population with chronicconditionsthat, in many cases, can be cost effectively monitored ortreated athome."
Shares of Biosign, which were as low as $1.07 earlier this year, closed at $1.60 today.