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| Aerocrine has partnered with Microsoft for its innovative asthma test.--Courtesy of Aerocrine |
Aerocrine has partnered with Microsoft ($MSFT) in a pilot project to send data from nitric oxide monitoring devices to the cloud for analysis. The ultimate goal is to better deploy customer service and sales support, but at first the pair will just be looking for secure and accurate telemetry data transmission.
Microsoft has a lower profile than competitors Apple ($AAPL) and Google ($GOOG) in connected medical devices. But it has an established platform that's a competitor to HealthKit, dubbed HealthVault. There are almost 150 apps and more than 230 devices that work with HealthVault, according to its website.
Founded at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, Aerocrine markets devices that are used by physicians to measure fractional exhaled nitric oxide, which is a biomarker for allergic airway inflammation that is linked to asthma. These measurements help doctors to diagnose, monitor and optimize therapy for people with inflammatory airway diseases. Asthma is estimated to affect 8% to 10% of the global population, according to the company.
"The ability to collect vital telemetry data from deployed devices has been a key objective of ours," Aerocrine CEO Scott Myers said in a statement. "A cloud-based solution allowing us to collect data on device performance in real-time helps us to be more proactive in our customer support and ensure that our NIOX devices help the physicians deliver the best possible outcome for the patient."
This proof-of-concept study will be in the fall and collect data from Aerocrine devices deployed in Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S. Microsoft will connect these devices to its secure cloud analytics platform, Microsoft Azure. The study is part of Microsoft's CityNext Healthier Cities initiative, which is dedicated to improving city life through connectivity.
"We are excited to work with Aerocrine on this project as part of the CityNext, Healthier Cities initiative to show the potential of new technology to drive productivity and patient safety as we move towards a mobile-first and cloud-first world," Industry Marketing Development Manager at Microsoft Sweden Mathias Ekman said in a statement.
Since 2007, Aerocrine has been listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. It markets nitric oxide monitors NIOX Mino and NIOX Vero. Its major shareholders include Novo A/S (25.3% stake), Invifed (23.1%) and HealthCap (11%).
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