Epicore Biosystems Launches Discovery Patch® Sweat Collection System

The Discovery Patch® Sweat Collection System is designated to be used by clinicians to track sweat biomarkers and sweat dynamics in the healthcare setting.

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Epicore Biosystems, Inc.

Oct 05, 2021, 09:00 ET

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Digital health solutions developer Epicore Biosystems has announced that it is launching its Discovery Patch® Sweat Collection System ("Discovery Patch System"). The platform consists of a wearable microfluidic patch that captures eccrine sweat directly from the skin during exercise, environmental exposure, and pharmacologic modes of sweat induction. Sweat is transferred from the microfluidic patch to clean lab storage containers using a sweat extraction apparatus designed to rapidly collect and prepare sweat samples for biochemical analysis.

The initial launch of the Discovery Patch System, which is registered with FDA as a 510(k) exempt product, is focused on its use to collect sweat during on-body wear for biomarker research. Recent validation studies conducted at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, and a publication in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, highlight the Discovery Patch System capabilities to non-invasively investigate biomarkers across a broad range of clinical applications, including performance, nutrition and stress management, cystic fibrosis, immunological diseases, and pain management. Epicore plans to continue these efforts to support expanded claims in the future.

"The US launch is a key milestone in support of Epicore's vision to establish wearable microfluidic sensors as a non-invasive tool in sports science, nutrition management, and clinical medicine," said John A. Wright, Jr. Chief Operations Officer of Epicore Biosystems. "Eccrine sweat is an emerging target for biomarker studies, with implications for a number of disease states. Our focus now is to deploy this platform to unlock the wealth of information found in sweat with patient comfort and experience in mind."

Sweat is a rich, and yet largely unexplored bodily fluid that consists of electrolytes, micronutrients, metabolites, hormones, and environmental toxins. Clinical studies have long shown that changes in sweat biomarkers reflect underlying physiological and metabolic processes. With the growing demand for personalized care management, Epicore is positioning its Discovery Patch System to bring biochemical sensing to the forefront, with leading collaborators in clinical medicine and the pharmaceutical industry.

"We're looking forward to evaluating the Discovery Patch System to monitor sweat chloride levels in people with cystic fibrosis while they exercise and in other contexts. Our experiences with this soft wearable microfluidic technology have been extremely positive from the data and patient comfort standpoint," said Dr. Manu Jain, Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Prior to the Discovery Patch System commercialization, Epicore launched its first wearable consumer product for athletic hydration management with PepsiCo and Gatorade. Called the Gx Sweat Patch, the single-use wearable is worn by athletes during physical exercise to capture and measure sweat hydration markers in real-time.

Epicore and the Gatorade Sports Science Institute published an expansive validation study in Science Advances detailing the performance of the Gx Sweat Patch versus conventional laboratory-based sweat analytic techniques. The Discovery Patch System builds on this seminal work and creates new clinical directions for the platform.

Epicore's suite of microfluidic products and analytics engine are now poised to build on the demand for non-invasive metabolic health data. "At its core, this technology highlights our commitment to the development of new non-invasive tools and analytics that could lead to metabolic health insights, while at the same time, improving patient comfort and experience," said Dr. AJ Aranyosi Chief Scientific Officer of Epicore Biosystems.

About Epicore Biosystems
Epicore Biosystems is a privately held digital health solutions company spun out of the Querrey-Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics and John Rogers Laboratory at Northwestern University. It has established partnerships with Fortune 100 companies, the Department of Defense, and leading research hospitals to drive personalized care with its proprietary wearable microfluidic products. For more information, please visit www.epicorebiosystems.com or @EpicoreBio on Twitter.

SOURCE Epicore Biosystems, Inc.