Yosef Safi Harb. Image: Happitech
Yosef Safi Harb was inspired to develop cardiac monitoring tech after seeing his father’s struggle to get a diagnosis for his heart condition.
Atrial fibrillation (Afib) is a heart condition that causes an irregular heart rhythm. The condition is characterised by the heart’s upper chambers, or atria, contracting randomly, sometimes so fast that the heart muscle can’t relax between contractions.
As well as reducing the heart’s ability to pump blood around the body, it can cause fatigue, shortness of breath and can lead to clots forming in the heart.
According to the Health Service Executive (HSE), Afib is the most common heart rhythm disturbance in Ireland and can lead to a stroke. As cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally, the early detection of cardiovascular conditions is of utmost importance, which is where our latest Start-up of the Week comes in.
Happitech is a medical device company based in the Netherlands that has developed software to detect Afib using a smartphone camera. The company was founded by CEO Yosef Safi Harb in 2015, who witnessed the difficult journey his father experienced trying to get a heart condition diagnosed. Leaving his job in aerospace engineering, Harb spent six years working with cardiologists to validate Happitech’s solution.
“Our ultimate goal is to become the first line of defence in cardiology, helping to prevent and detect early-on heart problems,” Harb tells SiliconRepublic.com.
Heartfelt tech
According to Harb, Happitech’s software leverages smartphone cameras using photoplethysmography (PPG) technology, transforming smartphones into “heart health monitoring tools without the need for additional hardware”.
PPG is a non-invasive optical method that measures the volumetric variation of blood circulation. “When a user places their finger on the smartphone camera for just 90 seconds, the camera detects subtle changes in light absorption caused by blood flow through the capillaries,” explains Harb.
“The captured data is then analysed using our proprietary algorithms, which are trained on datasets from tens of thousands patients in real-world conditions. These algorithms perform frequency and interval analysis to identify irregularities in the arterial pressure wave, indicative of atrial fibrillation.”
Along with achieving a CE certification as a Class 2a medical device and being involved in 13 clinical studies, Harb says that Happitech’s solution has been adopted in numerous hospitals, particularly in the Netherlands where Harb says the company holds more than 30pc of market share. “In total, our solution monitors over 30,000 Afib patients this year and has served over 500,000 unique users through partnerships with platform providers.”
5D chess
As for obstacles, Harb says that there has been no shortage of challenges that the team has had to overcome. “The medical device industry is a game of 5D chess. With each step, you are welcomed with a new challenge,” he says. “It crosses so many disciplines and each decision has lots of impacts on your business, the combination of product capabilities, regulatory, clinicians’ needs, reimbursement, go-to-market strategies etc.
“It is such a complex yet rewarding business. I am sometimes jealous of my SaaS founder friends, who can ship in a couple of months to new markets.”
Despite these challenges, Happitech is making steady progress. Currently, the start-up is working towards raising $5m in investment, with $1m already committed, and is expanding across Europe while building its team – which currently totals 15. The company also made it to the final of last year’s Medtech Innovator pitching event.
As for the future, there appears to be no slowing down for Harb and the rest of the Happitech team.
“We are currently going through the FDA clearance process, making great progress, and expect to open our commercial offering in 2025.”
Updated, 1.02pm, 30 September 2024: This article was amended to correct the amount of patients monitored and the year that Happitech’s commercial offering is expected to launch.
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