Eko announced today that it received a $2.7 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Oakland, Calif.-based Eko said in a news release that the grant will be used to fund its collaborative work with Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute as they validate algorithms to help screen for pathologic heart murmurs and valvular heart disease during routine office visits.
Eko and Northwestern announced their collaboration in March 2019 in an effort to find a low-cost option for identifying patients with heart disease without screening tools like echocardiograms.
This year alone, Eko received FDA approval in January for its suite of algorithms that combine with the company’s digital stethoscopes to screen for heart conditions, then in March it won FDA emergency use authorization for its novel ECG-based algorithm that screens for low ejection fraction in COVID-19 patients.
“This SBIR award from the NIH underscores our vision to provide world-class cardiovascular care at the patient’s point of care,” Eko chief medical officer Dr. Adam Saltman said in the release. “We believe that the integration of these deep learning algorithms into the Eko platform that is currently used by more than 1,000 institutions worldwide will lead to earlier diagnosis and better patient outcomes.
“Our mission is to change how cardiovascular disease is diagnosed, and as one of the first centers in the country to study AI and cardiovascular disease, Northwestern is an ideal partner to help us reach our goal.”