{"id":101003,"date":"2022-10-03T14:40:34","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T14:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/?p=101003"},"modified":"2022-10-03T14:41:35","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T14:41:35","slug":"pfizer-pays-179m-for-brisbane-company-behind-smartphone-app-that-claims-to-diagnose-covid-by-audrey-courty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/pfizer-pays-179m-for-brisbane-company-behind-smartphone-app-that-claims-to-diagnose-covid-by-audrey-courty\/","title":{"rendered":"Pfizer pays $179m for Brisbane company behind smartphone app that claims to diagnose COVID – By Audrey Courty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pfizer pays $179m for Brisbane company behind smartphone app that claims to diagnose COVID – By Audrey Courty<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

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\"Pfizer\"
The smartphone app analyses the sound of a cough to screen for COVID-19.(ABC Riverland: Catherine Heuzenroeder) <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Source :\u00a0abc<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A Brisbane-based company that invented a smartphone app it says can diagnose COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses\u00a0by listening to someone cough\u00a0has been purchased by Pfizer for nearly $180 million.<\/span><\/p>\n

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ResApp Health Limited uses diagnostic technology developed by Associate Professor Udantha Abeyratne and his research team at the University of Queensland (UQ) to record and analyse a patient’s coughs on a smartphone.<\/span><\/p>\n

The app also considers the self-reporting of simple symptoms like a runny nose or fever to diagnose and measure the severity of a range of pulmonary diseases, including asthma and pneumonia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pfizer, which is one of the world’s largest bio-pharmaceutical companies, offered to buy ResApp earlier this year when the company announced positive results for its COVID-19 screening test.<\/span><\/p>\n

Recent studies had shown the app had a 92 per cent success rate in diagnosing the virus among symptomatic patients, but more clinical trials were needed for it to gain regulatory approval.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Pfizer spokesperson said they were encouraged by the data they had seen so far and the $179 million acquisition, finalised on Monday, was another move toward enhancing the company’s expertise in digital health.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We believe the COVID-19 screening tool is the next step to potentially provide new solutions for consumers that aim to quell this disease,” they said.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We look forward to refining this algorithm further and working with regulators around the world to bring this important product to consumers as quickly as possible.”<\/span><\/p>\n

UQ Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Terry said it was an “outstanding” outcome for ResApp and associated researchers as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The value of translating research into new point-of-care diagnostics to improve healthcare on a global scale cannot be understated,” Professor Terry said.<\/span><\/p>\n

UQ’s commercialisation company UniQuest licensed the technology to ResApp in September 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n

‘Information super highway’<\/span><\/h2>\n
\"Udantha-Abeyratne\"
Associate Professor Udantha Abeyratne developed diagnostic technology used in ResApp Health.(Supplied)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr Abeyratne, from the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, said the research that led to the breakthrough began more than a decade ago with grant funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.<\/span><\/p>\n

“When I open up my lungs, open up the airway, that is what I call an ‘information super highway’, so I wondered whether it’s possible to use cough sounds, advanced signal processing and AI technology to pick out features,” he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

“From the very beginning, I had a big vision to develop scalable, cheap technologies to diagnose pulmonary diseases all over the world \u2013 not only in remote sub-Saharan Africa, but even in developed urban cities like New York and Brisbane.”<\/span><\/p>\n