CleveMed Obtains Third Patent For Sleep Apnea Therapy Management

CleveMed, a leader in Home Sleep Testing equipment and cloud-based services, announced today that it was issued a patent (U.S. Patent No. 8,545,416) from the United States Patent Office for an application covering the design of an integrated sleep diagnostic and therapy technology. The patent covers the adjustment of the most common sleep apnea therapy, CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), based on input from one or more physiological sensors placed on the patient. Like other chronic treatments, CPAP therapy will need to incorporate long-term efficacy information, beyond the currently-required 90 days, which often necessitates physiological information that cannot be measured by sensors inside the CPAP machine. This method of therapy management is particularly useful for sleep apnea patients with comorbidities, whose conditions can significantly change after CPAP initiation but have no means of conveniently monitoring or adjusting their treatments especially from the home. The affected population can be huge since the prevalence of coexisting diseases with sleep apnea is higher than 50% in many cases, suggesting that potentially millions of sleep apnea patients can benefit from such management of care.

“This is our third significant patent in this particular field covering the areas of titration, follow-up, and compliance of patients on auto-titrating PAP, Bi-Level and CPAP therapies. We believe these patents form the basis of a very strong Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio for CleveMed for the foreseeable future,” said Brian Kolkowski, CleveMed Executive VP and General Counsel. “Our IP strategy supports our vision of leading the next frontier in sleep medicine: long-term sleep therapy monitoring and management in the home, especially for patients with comorbidities,” said Hani Kayyali, CleveMed president. “Reimbursement pressures will shift chronic patient care from the hospitals to the homes, raising the need for effective and easy-to-use management tools and methods for CPAP and other OSA treatments.” Patients without comorbidities can also benefit from the technologies covered by CleveMed’s patents. Currently patients respond differently to the various CPAP machines on the market, especially auto-titrating PAP. Data from external patient sensors may provide the additional physiological information needed to prevent patient response variability.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), the most prevalent form of sleep apnea, is a repeated interruption of normal breathing during sleep due to a collapse of the upper airway. It is estimated to impact as many people as asthma and diabetes; yet, up to 80 percent of the population with the disease is undiagnosed and untreated. OSA does in fact hold serious health and economic consequences. Numerous studies link OSA to major chronic diseases such as stroke, heart failure, diabetes, obesity, hypertension and increased odds of serious car crash injuries.

ABOUT CLEVEMED
CleveMed is a leader in portable sleep monitoring and web-based technologies. CleveMed has developed a growing range of products that address the needs of those with sleep disorders, including Sapphire PSG, SleepScout, SleepView and SleepView Web-portal. CleveMed’s wireless sleep products allow sleep studies to be conducted in the home, which is convenient for patients, speeds the diagnosis and treatment for providers, and reduces healthcare costs for payers. For more information, please visit www.CleveMed.com (Follow us onyoutube, LinkedIn, facebook, twitter, and CleveMed Blogs).

For More Information Contact:
Amy Rickard
Cleveland Medical Devices Inc.
P: 216.791.6720
arickard@clevemed.com