Eccrine Systems Inc, an advanced sweat sensor company, has recently announced that a key patent (US10136831) has been issued to its co-founder, Dr Jason Heikenfeld.
The patented invention covers the use of on-body sweat devices that are capable of electronically correlating two or more measurements of an analyte with the time at which the analyte emerged in newly excreted sweat. Without the use of the invention it is likely not possible to correlate sweat analyte data trends with chronological blood values or similar physiological measurements.
"Non-invasive medication monitoring is a great example of the utility of Jason's invention," says Dr Gavi Begtrup, CEO of Eccrine Systems.
"You can't devise an on-body device to derive a sweat pharmacokinetic curve, and then correlate that curve to a drug's blood PK curve, without using this invention.his is a big deal given the estimated US$500bn annual healthcare cost of non-optimised medication therapy, a significant portion of which can result from individual PK differences that cause failed treatment outcomes."
Heikenfeld developed his invention over four years ago at a time when continuous on-body measurement of sweat analytes was at its inception. Heikenfeld is a well-known scientific leader of the wearable sweat sensor space with many of its most prescient and important advances to his credit.
The company uses Heikenfeld's invention to time correlate the data derived from its sweat sensor devices, including data and algorithms that will define the pharmacokinetic (PK) profile of medications that are excreted in locally stimulated sweat.