Asthma inhaler sensor given clearance by FDA

Asthma sufferers all around the world may soon have a revolutionary device in their possession after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted a 510(k) clearance on Tuesday to a Madison based company to start rolling out its asthma inhaler sensor. This kind of clearance means it can be marketed based on the fact there is an existing comparable product in the market already.

Asthmapolis have announced they received the federal clearance required to start offering the sensors to the public, together with mobile and web application software. The sensors are named ‘the Spiroscout’, and will only be available on prescription.

The sensor can be attached to most reliever inhalers such as the widely used Ventolin, and preventive inhalers such as Qvar’s Beclometasone and Easi-Breathe inhalers. It works by transmitting data to the person’s smartphone upon each discharge of their inhaler and satellites can then pinpoint the user’s location and pass all information back to the company’s server.

Asthmapolis boast that their new device is ‘small and lightweight’ and ‘easy to mount securely on the end of most inhalers’. Some advantages to asthmatics will be the generation of weekly reports, providing information on how many times they have used their inhalers, locations of asthma attacks, and they can even receive text messages that remind them to use their asthma medications.
The chances are that not every single person who suffers from asthma or chronic pulmonary obstructive disease will also own a smartphone, so the makers have devised a plan to cater for this. Users can connect their sensor to an access point called ‘2net Hub’, created by the wireless health network company Qualcomm Life.

Inger Couture, Chief Regulatory Officer of Asthmapolis, commented on the new device via a written statement and said, “We are thrilled to have achieved this important milestone to support our mission of providing tools to help patients and their healthcare providers better understand and control their asthma symptoms. Despite all we know about asthma and how to treat it, the majority of patients still do not have the disease under control, and traditional approaches to self-management have been time-consuming and complicated. The Asthmapolis technology makes it much easier to track symptoms and use of metered dose inhalers, allowing patients, their families and their doctors to gain a valuable new perspective on the disease.”

The proportion of asthmatic individuals in the United States increased by nearly 15% from 2001 to 2010, at which point it was thought there were 25.7 million people were affected. So clearly the device will benefit many people. Also in the UK there are approximately 5.4 million people currently receiving treatment for asthma. The lung condition is a worldwide problem, and can be deadly if you are not keeping track of your symptoms and attacks through the use of an asthma diary, or do not have sufficient supplies of your asthma inhalers.

At Medical Specialists Pharmacy we offer a wide range of medications to help asthma sufferers, all at great prices. If you have already been prescribed an inhaler, have lost your inhaler, or run out and cannot get a prescription immediately, we are able to supply you an inhaler to help your asthma symptoms.   After undergoing a private and confidential online consultation with one of our Doctors, if you are suitable they will then write you a prescription which is passed to our in-house Pharmacists and dispensed to a location of your choice. This is all done discretely and within just 24 hours. We offer both blue (relievers) inhalers such as Ventolin and Salbutamol, and brown (preventers) inhalers such as Qvar Beclomethasone, Qvar Easi-Breathe, and Pulvinal Beclomethasone.