The battery-powered N-Tidal, developed by the Glasgow-based firm with its client Cambridge Respiratory Innovations, offers a far easier and accurate way to measure CO2 levels in exhaled breath. This is a key indicator of lung health and replaceable breath and mouth tubes enable multiple use and avoid cross contamination.
The miniaturised technology is also set to transform the lives of people with acute breathing difficulties such as asthma and chronically congested lungs(COPD), enabling home or GP monitoring and sparing them hours of discomfort connected to a machine in hospital.
Clinical trials related to these were already underway but then stopped because of the pandemic.
“Clinicians then realised the potential for N-Tidal to be used with Covid-19 patients, either for allocating ventilators to the most needy or monitoring their recovery.
Our adaptation of the devices is going well,” says Wideblue’s managing director Russell Overend.
The Covid trials are expected to start next month followed by resumption of the other tests.
Wideblue, which has a team of 18 scientists and turns over £1.6m, specialises in optical and medical projects, taking them from concept through to volume manufacture.
“With anticipated demand in-house production of N-Tidal units have been increased,” adds Overend. A US version of N-Tidal is planned following interest there.
www.wide-blue.com, www.camresp.com