Epicore Biosystems announced last month that it will collaborate with 3M and Innovize to scale its portfolio of wearable hydration solutions.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Epicore develops sweat-sensing wearables. Its portfolio includes the Gx Sweat Patch created in partnership with PepsiCo and Gatorade, the Discovery Patch sweat collection system and the Connected Hydration wearable hydration sensor and mobile application tailored for industrial athletes and sports.
The partnership aims to leverage 3M’s skin-interfacing materials and Innovize’s manufacturing capabilities. A large aspect of the collaboration revolves around disruptions in the global supply chain. Epicore said it has a network of domestic partners ready to deploy its technology.
“Our collaboration with 3M and Innovize ensures that Epicore Biosystems has a strong domestic production infrastructure,” said Jeffrey Model, chief product officer and co-founder at Epicore Biosystems. “We’re thrilled to collaborate with material science and manufacturing powerhouses as we expand our suite of clinically-validated, sweat-sensing products and pave the way for the future of noninvasive health tracking wearables.”
Epicore’s offerings measure sweat biometrics and provide customized recovery insights about hydration. That includes sweat rate, total sweat loss, electrolyte concentrations, bioanalyte loss, skin temperature, and motion. The platform captures all metrics through an unobtrusive wearable sweat sensor. It analyzes them through a proprietary cloud engine and delivers data directly to the wearer through a smartphone app and cloud portal.
The wearable features flexible physical properties that enable seamless integration on the body, multimodal data streams that enable direct measurements of hydration, stress, and nutrition status, and low-cost designs that do not require cleaning or external charging stations.
“Within 3M, we’re on a mission to improve lives and solve the world’s toughest challenges through science, including better, smarter, safer healthcare solutions. Working with Epicore Biosystems we can do exactly that,” said Chad Reed, director, 3M Medical Device Solutions. “We’re proud to provide more than a half dozen medical-grade products for Epicore Biosystems’ suite of wearable microfluidic solutions in our commitment to innovation that addresses real-world problems in the healthcare, wellness, and sports performance spheres.”
Innovize supports high-volume manufacturing with a newspaper-like printing process called the roll-to-roll (R2R) method. It produces microfluidic structures at high throughput.
“From materials selection to process development and high-volume production, Innovize is dedicated to collaborating with partners who are at the forefront of innovation in their respective industries,” said Dave Jessen, owner and VP of sales and marketing at Innovize. “We’re excited to be part of the disruption Epicore Biosystems is igniting in the wearables sector and look forward to growing our partnership as we continue executing on its personalized hydration management products.”