Shimmer and ClearSky Announce Partnership to Improve Analysis of Wearable Sensor Data for CNS Diseases

CAMBRIDGE, MA - Jun 19, 2019 - Shimmer Research, a global leader in wearable technology for research applications, and ClearSky Medical Diagnostics, a leader in analyzing wearable data for medical applications, today announced they are partnering to bring a new level of analytic capabilities to the use of wearable sensors in clinical research. This partnership will employ Shimmer’s Verisense™ wearable sensors platform, which has been designed specifically for use in clinical research, with ClearSky algorithms and machine learning to transform wearables data into actionable insights for central nervous system (CNS) diseases.

Verisense is a comprehensive and flexible solution for reliably capturing accurate and complete biometric data. Worn on the wrist, the Verisense Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensor can monitor activity and sleep seamlessly. But Verisense can be used for any IMU application with up to seven sensors worn on different parts of a participant’s body, making it invaluable for studying complex musculoskeletal or neurological conditions, such as dystonia or epilepsy.

ClearSky Medical Diagnostics specializes in developing technologies for the diagnosis and monitoring of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. Its clinically-validated medical devices have been used in medical centers worldwide and in clinical trials to demonstrate the efficacy of new drugs. For example, ClearSky’s LID-Monitor can distinguish Levodopa-induced dyskinesia from Parkinson’s tremors, allowing doctors to optimize Levodopa dosage. This approach significantly improves patients’ quality of life and also saves time and money due to the reduction in consultations required. ClearSky’s technical team has more than 15 years’ experience analyzing clinical trial data and has developed a range of machine learning technologies to meet current and future clinical needs.

“The Verisense platform is truly a breakthrough for conducting clinical research,” said Dr. Stephen Smith, co-founder of ClearSky Medical Diagnostics. “It can provide the continuous raw data from wearables needed for sophisticated algorithms, yet places almost no burden on the participant or the clinical site. It has multiple layers of redundancy and quality checking to ensure that high-quality data are collected without interruption.”

“ClearSky’s algorithms can be used with Verisense data right away,” said Geoff Gill, president of Shimmer Americas, “but what we are really excited about is the potential for our clinical research customers to leverage ClearSky’s experience and datasets to develop endpoints for a wide variety of CNS disorders based on Verisense data. ClearSky has taken raw motion data and transformed it with machine learning into actionable insights for physicians in a wide range of applications. This experience is ideally suited to develop endpoints for diseases like Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, Huntington’s, and many others using real-world data.”

“Literally thousands of researchers have been using Shimmer sensors for more than 10 years to develop algorithms to understand the data from wearable sensors,” said Gill. “By capturing continuous raw data, the Verisense platform allows us to leverage tens of thousands of person-years of research. We anticipate collaborating with many leading researchers and are excited that ClearSky shares our vision.”

Interested parties can see the Verisense platform in action in booth #533 at the DIA Annual Meeting, which will be held from June 24-26 at the San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, CA.

About ClearSky

ClearSky Medical Diagnostics was established in 2013 as a spin out company from the Department of Electronic Engineering at the University of York, UK. It specializes in the development of medical devices to objectively diagnose and monitor a range of neurodegenerative conditions including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. Its current products include devices to monitor the side-effects of medication in people with Parkinson’s (LID-Monitor), confirm the diagnosis and monitor the progression of Parkinson’s (PD-Monitor). Both devices are CE Marked for clinical use and have been used in medical centers world-wide. The company’s founders have over 15 years’ experience in designing and undertaking clinical studies, and evaluating the data obtained using its library of proprietary machine learning algorithms. For more information, visit www.clearskymd.com  or follow @ClearSkyMD.

About Shimmer Research

Founded based on Intel technology in 2006, Shimmer Research is a well-established wearable technologies services and sensor manufacturing company based in Dublin, Ireland. In addition to standard products, Shimmer provides customized sensor development services, volume manufacturing, and complete wearable sensor solutions of any complexity. Shimmer’s technology and services have been employed by thousands of researchers at more than 900 leading companies, universities, and research institutes in more than 75 countries. Shimmer’s technology is incorporated in the products and services of more than 20 original equipment manufacturers. Shimmer has an ISO 13485:2016 certified medical devices quality management system. For more information, visit www.shimmersensing.com, www.linkedin.com/company/shimmer or follow @ShimmerSensing.