The past year has been amazing for Zansors with interesting developments for the company and its stakeholders. As Zansors prepares for the exciting possibilities ahead, here I’m sharing some of our key updates and news.
Making moves
For a company, a new logo, a new website and a new office represent big changes to its identity… imagine how excited we were to have all three of these changes in the past few months!
In case you haven’t noticed, Zansors has a sleek new logo. You might notice our redesigned corporate website too. And, of course, we have this refreshed design identity on our social media channels of Facebook and Twitter. Now you’ve got a new reason to like our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter!
Zansors moved to a new space not only virtually, but also physically! You can now find the Zansors team pumped up to work in the new office space in MakeOffices- a vibrant community of startups in Arlington, Virginia.
Image by Brett Ludeke
Real progress
These changes to our look and our space are only cool if it’s backed by real outcomes that make a difference. Driven by our goal to create “tools – not toys,” we always strive to make products that are evidence-based and yet accessible to regular consumers. We continued to make progress in developing breakthrough technologies, integrating complex bioengineering, basic scientific research, algorithms and clinical evidence, that we need in healthcare to reduce cost and increase access. Our technology development spans across applications for chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular health, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), cancer as well as sensors for sleep, blood glucose levels, Electrocardiography (ECG), heart rate and water pollutants.
Zansors was recently awarded a $1.5 million grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the premier national research institution for biomedical innovation. With the help of this grant, we are on our pathway to further develop, validate and commercialize a wearable consumer device that can help you detect sleep apnea in an easy and affordable way. See our detailed press release here in case you missed it. (Make sure to check out the video too).
We also finished the Phase I of an SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) project to develop a wearable sweat-based sensor to measure blood alcohol level in real time. Not to mention, we had fun time doing user testing for this study… keep an eye out for a post on this soon!
Zansors also had a design patent issued for a wearable sensor device in 2016. This is just an example of our continued strategy of building an innovation portfolio that puts Zansors at a competitive advantage and enables Zansors to build medical-grade products that help people.
Community engagement
In 2016, we continued to be part of the health tech and digital health communities in the Greater DC Metro area and beyond. Having an office in Arlington, Zansors was proud to collaborate with Arlington Economic Development (AED) to organize a panel discussion on the “next wearable technological breakthrough for national security forces.” This event, co-organized by Tandem NSI, was attended by promising local startups in this space of wearables and defense industry innovations. This is also an example how our team believes in local community and peer startups as key stakeholders in our mission.
The Zansors team is also focused on establishing our position as a thought leader in shaping industry trends and educating consumers on the difference between “tools” and “toys” when it comes to health technology. Zansors team members have delivered talks at conferences such as HITLAB summit, Medical MEMS 2016 and Biological + Chemical Sensors 2016, as well as served as panelists at social-issue discussions such as the “Women, Wellness and Tech” event by Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness and “The impact of Wearable Devices on Healthcare” organized by Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association. Most importantly, we have made great friends through this process. We’re grateful to our blog contributors and collaborators Tyrone Ceaser, PhD, Alan Viars, Brittany Weinberg, Mary Schmidt, MD, Shannon Clark and Sara Kuppin Chokshi. See our blog page to check out the amazing content they have produced on a range of healthcare and tech topics.
Our community engagement reach has also expanded virtually. We continued expanding our reach in terms followers on Twitter in 2016. Not only do we connect here with great minds in health tech, we are also proud of supporting collective movements like #PinkSocks for putting consumers first in the healthcare world. Ultimately, we all want the same thing in healthcare—reduce cost, increase access and improve quality of care. We strive for this triple aim at the core of every product we work to develop.
Coming soon...
In addition to our research and product development activities, we are also making progress in manufacturing as well as business development by engaging some of the big players in healthcare, pharma and consumer tech industries. We’ll keep you updated as we make progress on this front— subscribe to our email newsletter on our homepage to stay up to date on where we’re going.
Here’s one thing that might get your immediate attention: we are going to be featured by an international TV broadcaster in a segment on wearable health technology! Yes, our innovations are being recognized and shaping discussion around where our future belongs. We can’t wait to share it with you… Stay tuned for the exciting things from Zansors!
Kashyap Purani is Director of Marketing & Business Development at Zansors. Follow him on Twitter @puranikashyap