Patients just don’t get a lot of one-on-one time with their physicians. But what if there was a way to give doctors more time so they could get better insight on their patient’s health.

That’s something Spry Health, a company formed in July of 2014, is seeking to address by providing continuous monitoring for patients.

Elad Ferber and Pierre-Jean Cobut founded the Palo Alto, CA-based company, which has developed the Loop Wearable Wristband.

“This is our first healthcare company, but we were really interested in healthcare because the opportunities here can make a huge impact in patients’ lives,” Cobut told MD+DI. “

Spry Health, the winner of MD+DI’s 2018 Medtech Startup Showdown, said Loop, is the first clinical grade wearable that measures blood pressure, pulse oximetry, respiration rate, and heart rate. The data is streamed to the system's analytics platform for tracking and analysis in an effort to pinpoint the earliest signs of patient deterioration in advance of any new symptoms noticeable to the patient. In the clinical setting, the data can be used to help providers intervene earlier.

The company is seeking to get a nod from the FDA to market the technology.

“We’re in the process of an FDA submission and we’re submitting with the agency as a Class II Device,” Cobut said.

Spry Health has about a dozen employees and is looking to recruit another six within the next few months. The firm had a seed round of $1.5 million in 2015 and a series A round of $5.5 million last year.

A key focus of the company is to develop technology based on the user experience. Cobut said that many companies in medtech design devices based on functionality as opposed to the patients that are using it, and that needs to change.

“What is missing in medtech in general is user experience,” he said. “When I think about the way medical technology is usually designed, it’s designed for function. That’s totally fine for products that are going to be used in a clinical environment and are going to be used by professionals. But as care is moving into the home, then that is a system that just doesn’t work anymore.”