Sibel Health Awarded a $3.5 million ARPA-H Direct-to-Phase II SBIR Contract to Develop a First-In-Class Wearable Sensor for Continuous Edema Monitoring

A proposed multi-modality biosensor patch aims to replace subjective, manual edema assessment with continuous, objective monitoring

CHICAGO, April 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Sibel Health, an award winning medical technology company, today announced that it has been awarded a $3.5 million dollar Direct-to-Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to develop an ambulatory edema monitor—a first-in-class wearable device capable of continuously and objectively tracking lower-leg edema outside of a clinical examination room.

Edema Rarely Measured Objectively in Clinical Medicine

Tissue edema—the pathological accumulation of fluid—is a consequence of a range of medical conditions from breast cancer to venous insufficiency. In the case of congestive heart failure, a condition affecting more than 6 million Americans and costing the U.S. healthcare system over $35 billion annually in hospitalizations and readmissions, lower leg swelling can be an early sign of clinical deterioration. Yet the standard clinical method for assessing edema has not meaningfully changed in decades: a clinician presses a finger into the patient's skin for several seconds, releases it, and grades the resulting indentation on a four-point scale. ARPA-H recognized a need for new objective wearable technologies that can accurately determine edema status to influence clinical decision making. This Direct-to-Phase II award to Sibel Health reflects a transformative, high-risk, high-reward investment that ARPA-H was created to catalyze for a clinical symptom that has been long ignored.

Proposed Solution:  A Multimodal Wearable for Continuous Edema Monitoring

Sibel Health, spun out of the world-renowned research laboratory of Professor John Rogers and the Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics at Northwestern University, will develop an ultra-thin, soft, and flexible wearable sensor capable of assessing tissue fluid status wirelessly. This new sensor will integrate with Sibel's existing FDA-cleared mobile software platform and cloud infrastructure. Continuous ambulatory edema monitoring requires solving a set of deeply intertwined hardware, sensing, signal processing, and clinical challenges that have prevented prior efforts from reaching commercial or clinical viability. "ARPA-H is making the kinds of investments in health research and development that the private sector alone will not make—especially when the technology risk is high and the unmet clinical needs have been underserved. We are deeply grateful to ARPA-H for selecting Sibel and our team to execute on this program," says Steve Xu MD CEO of Sibel Health and Principal Investigator.

About Sibel Health

Sibel Health is a Chicago-based medical technology company developing FDA-cleared wearable biosensor platforms for continuous, objective physiological monitoring. Sibel's product portfolio includes the FDA-cleared ANNE One™ wireless monitoring system for pediatric and adult monitoring, and ANNE Maternal™ for maternal fetal monitoring. Our mission is to deliver Better Health Data for All®—from the most advanced academic medical centers to the most resource-limited settings worldwide. Follow us on LinkedIn  or visit our website at www.sibelhealth.com.

This Direct to Phase II SBIR is funded under Award Number 140D0426C0027. The content is solely the responsibility of Sibel Health and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.

SOURCE Sibel Health