Leo Pharma’s R&D innovation unit LEO Science & Tech Hub has collaborated with Wearifi and Northwestern University’s Center for Bio-Integrated Electronics to develop wearable device for dermatology research.
Wearifi designs and develops which is claimed to be the world’s smallest, battery-free wearable device.
The partnership will study the clinical potential of next-generation wearable electronics in dermatology research.
The study will assess whether the device and miniaturized sensor technology can inform and enhance drug development and treatment regimens by potentially identifying and measuring crucial disease-associated biomarkers.
Wearifi chief technology officer Anthony Banks said: “Wearifi’s miniature wireless devices allow for imperceptible and unobtrusive placement practically anywhere on the body and are currently used to monitor heart rate, respiration rate, and UV exposure.”
Initially, the partnership will launch a proof of concept study in collaboration with dermatologists and engineers at Northwestern University’s Center for Bio-Integrated Electronics and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine’s Department of Dermatology.
The teams will study the opportunities to create a volatile organic compound (VOC) detector for continuous measurement of both external and internal VOCs.
Leo Science & Tech Hub chief data scientist Troels Marstrand said: “Effectively bringing Wearifi products into the dermatology space will be a challenging endeavor, but one that will push boundaries and help us better understand our limits with regards to the relationship between technology and skin health.
“We have an opportunity in front of us to learn informative new details about our largest organ and potentially yield pioneering results for our industry.”
LEO Science & Tech Hub establishes collaborations for the development of an advanced technology for dermatological applications.
The hub formed multiple partnerships with major research institutes and biotechnology firms to study minimally invasive biomarker technologies, drug delivery devices, advanced imaging systems, and remote monitoring methods.
It has partnered with entities such as MIT, Epicore Biosystems, The Karp Lab, Novopyxis, Elektrofi and The Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Wearifi is a spinout from the John Rogers’ Laboratory at Northwestern University’s Center for Bio-Integrated electronics. It has development partnerships with multinational firms such as L’Oreal, and funding from the US Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health.
