At CES 2025, deep tech startup APNEAL made headlines by unveiling a groundbreaking technological advancement in the field of sleep health – an AI-powered app designed to detect sleep apnea using nothing more than an ordinary smartphone. This innovative app offers a significant improvement over traditional methods, providing a simple, cost-effective, and highly accurate solution to a widespread yet underdiagnosed public health issue.
Sleep apnea, a condition that disrupts breathing during sleep, affects over 900 million people worldwide, with more than 80% of cases undiagnosed. The consequences of untreated sleep apnea are severe, contributing to an array of comorbidities such as diabetes, strokes, cardiovascular disease, and even cancer. Women are particularly underdiagnosed, with over 90% of cases going unrecognized. In the United States alone, 26% of adults aged 30-70 are impacted, a figure exacerbated by the obesity epidemic. The costs associated with untreated sleep apnea are staggering, ranking fourth among the biggest health system cost drivers after cancer, diabetes, and coronary diseases.
The Traditional Diagnostic Process
Cumbersome and Expensive Methods
The current diagnostic processes for sleep apnea are cumbersome and expensive, typically involving overnight stays in sleep clinics or the use of complex, costly home-monitoring devices. Patients must often sleep wired to sensors, which can be uncomfortable and disruptive to their natural sleep patterns. Additionally, these traditional methods are not accessible to everyone, leading to many cases remaining undiagnosed and untreated. This scenario highlights the urgent need for a more user-friendly, reliable, and affordable diagnostic solution for sleep apnea.
The need to stay overnight in a sleep clinic, often multiple times, can be particularly challenging for individuals with demanding schedules or those experiencing discomfort in unfamiliar environments. Home-monitoring devices, while somewhat more convenient, still require wearing numerous sensors and wires throughout the night. These systems can affect sleep quality, potentially skewing the diagnostic results. The combination of inconvenience, high costs, and potential inaccuracies underscores the significant limitations of conventional sleep apnea diagnostic techniques. A solution that minimizes these issues while retaining high diagnostic accuracy would be a game-changer.
Accessibility Issues
The inaccessibility of traditional diagnostic methods means that many individuals, especially those in remote or underserved areas, do not receive the necessary diagnosis and treatment. This lack of accessibility exacerbates the public health issue, leaving millions of people at risk for severe health complications. For some, the geographical distance from sleep clinics can make undergoing the necessary diagnostic tests unfeasible, while for others, financial constraints further prevent accessing these vital services.
Moreover, individuals without comprehensive health insurance or those living in countries with underfunded healthcare systems face additional barriers. The high cost and logistical challenges associated with traditional diagnostics exclude a significant portion of the population from receiving timely and accurate diagnoses. Thus, many cases of sleep apnea, especially among those who cannot afford or physically access traditional diagnostic tools, go unnoticed and untreated. This dilemma underscores the need for innovative solutions that are not only effective but also affordable and widely accessible.
APNEAL’s Innovative Solution
Transforming Smartphones into Diagnostic Tools
APNEAL’s innovative AI-powered app seeks to revolutionize this process by transforming a regular smartphone into a medical-grade diagnostic tool capable of advanced sleep examinations. The app utilizes the smartphone’s inbuilt sensors – including the accelerometer, gyroscope, and microphone – to monitor respiratory movements, heartbeats, and breathing sounds while the user sleeps. To use the app, individuals need only attach their smartphone to their chest with an adhesive strip (available at pharmacies) and activate the app in airplane mode before going to sleep.
This simple setup allows individuals to continue with their usual bedtime routine without any discomfort or disruption. The data collected during sleep is comprehensive, offering a detailed overview of the user’s respiratory patterns and other physiological indicators. This approach contrasts sharply with the intrusive, cumbersome nature of conventional methods, making it an attractive alternative for both patients and healthcare providers.
Advanced Data Collection and Processing
During the night, the phone collects data on up to 3,000 data points per second across six axes, tracking intricate respiratory and positional changes. Artificial intelligence processes this vast amount of data, achieving an unprecedented 90% accuracy in identifying affected individuals, a statistic comparable to the standard polysomnography tests conducted in sleep clinics. This level of accuracy, combined with the app’s convenience and affordability, provides a game-changing diagnostic solution.
The AI meticulously analyzes subtle breathing patterns and micro-movements that indicate sleep apnea, ensuring precision in diagnosis. Such detailed analysis is made possible due to the high processing power of modern smartphones and sophisticated machine learning algorithms. The ability to harness these technologies for medical diagnostics marks a significant step forward in accessible healthcare solutions, setting a new standard for how sleep disorders can be detected and managed. The potential to democratize complex medical diagnostics with a device as ubiquitous as a smartphone holds promise for broad, impactful changes in public health.
Benefits for Patients and Healthcare Professionals
Simplifying the Diagnostic Journey
Severin Benizri, CEO and co-founder of APNEAL, emphasizes the company’s mission to simplify the diagnostic journey for sleep apnea. By leveraging the advanced sensors and computational power of modern smartphones, APNEAL offers a diagnostic tool that is both reliable and accessible to all, ensuring that anyone can detect and manage sleep apnea without the need for expensive or cumbersome medical equipment. This mission reflects a deep understanding of the barriers faced by many patients and addresses them head-on.
Providing an easy-to-use, high-precision diagnostic tool directly to consumers represents a significant step toward patient empowerment. Users can potentially gain insights into their sleep health much sooner, without needing to navigate the traditional healthcare system’s complexities and constraints. This shift not only makes diagnostics more convenient but also encourages proactive health monitoring and management, potentially improving long-term health outcomes for individuals with sleep apnea.
Enhancing Healthcare Capabilities
APNEAL’s app not only simplifies the process for patients but also benefits healthcare professionals. The data collected is presented in detailed, intuitive reports that can be easily integrated into existing medical systems. This streamlining of the diagnostic process enables doctors to diagnose more quickly and provide better care, ultimately enhancing patient outcomes. The app’s ability to capture even mild and moderate symptoms sets it apart from other wearable devices, which tend to detect only severe cases of apnea.
This comprehensive approach allows healthcare providers to deliver personalized treatment plans tailored to the severity of each patient’s condition. Simplified data-sharing and reporting further integrate the app into broader healthcare management systems, facilitating better communication between patients and doctors. The result is a more efficient, effective healthcare process that benefits all parties involved.
Clinical Validation and Future Prospects
Preliminary Study Success
The efficacy of APNEAL’s app has been demonstrated in a preliminary study at Bichat Hospital, involving 50 patients, where it achieved 90% accuracy in categorizing affected individuals. The company is now in the process of obtaining CE marking and FDA approval, with one of the largest sleep studies ever conducted currently underway. This validation study involves 1,000 patients across twenty European centers in France, Germany, and Spain.
The impressive preliminary results have already garnered significant attention within the medical community. These upcoming regulatory milestones are crucial for the app’s broader adoption and credibility. The extensive ongoing study aims to consolidate the app’s reliability and accuracy, potentially setting a new benchmark in sleep apnea diagnostics.
Extensive Validation and Deployment
The results of this extensive study will pave the way for CE marking and FDA approval by 2025, with full-scale deployment anticipated by 2026. In addition to clinical validation, APNEAL is also conducting real-life and health economics studies with pharmacies, insurance companies, and clinical research organizations, set to commence in early 2025. These studies aim to further solidify the app’s position as a reliable and cost-effective solution for sleep apnea detection.
These real-world applications will provide additional insights into the app’s performance across diverse populations and settings. Working closely with stakeholders in healthcare delivery and insurance will also demonstrate the app’s potential to optimize treatment costs and improve patient adherence to health management plans. Such comprehensive validation efforts underscore APNEAL’s commitment to enhancing public health on a global scale.
Recognition and Industry Impact
Accolades and Awards
At CES 2025, the deep tech startup APNEAL captured attention by launching a revolutionary technology in sleep health: an AI-powered app that detects sleep apnea with just an ordinary smartphone. This innovative app marks a significant leap over traditional methods by offering a simple, cost-effective, and highly accurate solution to a common yet underdiagnosed public health problem.
Sleep apnea, which interrupts breathing during sleep, affects over 900 million people globally, with more than 80% of cases undiagnosed. Untreated sleep apnea can lead to severe health issues including diabetes, strokes, cardiovascular diseases, and even cancer. Women, in particular, face a high rate of underdiagnosis, with over 90% of cases going unnoticed. In the United States alone, 26% of adults aged 30-70 are affected, a problem worsened by the growing obesity epidemic. The economic burden of undiagnosed and untreated sleep apnea is substantial, making it one of the top drivers of healthcare costs, following cancer, diabetes, and coronary diseases.