Benzinga | Aug 27, 2021 07:39AM EDT

Who is Dr. Waqaas Al-Siddiq, and Why are His Wearables the Most Crucial Devices MedTech Has Ever Seen?

Biotricity Inc. (NASDAQ:BTCY) is a medtech startup that has seen quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) growth since its inception within the cardiac arena, and just listed on the NASDAQ as of August 26. The company was founded by CEO, 36-year-old, Dr. Waqaas Al-Siddiq, whose passion for remote monitoring and sensory networks has led him to design several innovative micro electro-mechanical products for some of the biggest names in machine learning and the medtech industry. It was also just uplisted to the Nasdaq on Thursday.

An engineer by trade, Al-Siddiq is no stranger to the real-time communication of smart technologies or that of wearables and connected devices. Dr. Al-Siddiq initially became interested in remote monitoring during his graduate work in remote sensor networks. There, he worked in high-end CPU, server architectures and cloud computing, and would eventually lead him to work for companies such as IBM, AMD and Intel in server platform architecture and, later on, in lifestyle-driven gamification.

He's also served on various boards as chairman and taken on several executive roles among various startups, mid-sized companies and nonprofit organizations.

What was the Motivation for Biotricity?

When Dr. Al-Siddiq launched Biotricity, he just knew the future would be in connected health. He saw a major gap in the market and how cardiac monitoring was taking place. He took notice of how siloed remote monitoring space actually was and that no one was really paying attention to how parallel diseases would affect one another. Biotricity set out to change this by taking an open-platform approach to integrating various data into a single dashboard solution for patients with multiple conditions.

As a pre-diabetic, Dr. Al-Siddiq felt moved to minimize the burden healthcare professionals often place on the patient, whether it's in receiving adequate care for an ongoing condition, excessive legwork in the testing of diagnostics or the affordability of the services provided. In one interview, Dr. Al-Siddiq noted, "It's shaped my awareness of chronic illness, and as a result, I'm on a lifelong mission to bring cutting edge technologies to people for preventative healthcare."

The Numbers and How they Relate to His Device

While it's estimated that only 17 million patients have received a diagnosis related to cardiac disease and its comorbidities, there are currently 30 million people at risk for heart disease across the United States. Recent studies by the Cincinnati Children's Hospital have even highlighted the impact comorbidities have on parallel disease and progression -- especially among those who aren't outwardly showing signs or symptoms thereof.

Over # million patients a year will receive some type of remote cardiac monitoring, Biotricity, a remote platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and technology-as-a-service (TaaS) company in the MedTech sector, currently serves an estimated 2.2 million of these patients through its flagship Bioflux product.

The Bioflux provides active real-time monitoring 24/7 and ultimately high-end clinical diagnostics with much higher quality than other consumer monitoring products. Bioflux is used for real-time data collection and is by physicians and is insurance reimbursable.

Over 1100 cardiologists use the Bioflux at more than 370 different centers across 24 states. As Biotricity grows its product pipeline, many of these centers will offer additional products and services by this company. In total, there are 3 different products ready to be released and 2 products and services in development for future release.

Each network of doctors currently serves an average of 2,000 different patients per year. These patients are typically monitored on an annual basis, making reusable devices affordable and available to the next patient in need. In addition, each device has a 2-year lifespan, whereas they will need to be replaced.

Within a $1 billion market, the company saw continued growth for both sequential and year-over-year revenues, including a Q1 revenue of $1.8 million, as representative of the 9th consecutive quarter of triple-digit, year-over-year growth.

With a unique business model and recurring revenue streams, this is not at all surprising. First and foremost, the Bioflux is a fee-based technology, meaning physicians only pay Biotricity per use of each device. Fees are generally passed along to the insurer through billing. And, the doctor is compensated rather handsomely for utilizing a much more superior technology.

Through this model, Biotricity expects to see a high rate of retention of its products and services.

It used to be that the physician received very little to no compensation for referrals, and the patient would be billed at a much higher rate. However, Biotricity has made it possible for doctors to provide this service in-office and actually generate a revenue stream for doing so. The best part -- this is more affordable to the patient, who will now receive a truer, more accurate diagnosis.

In the coming months, Biotricity will release its consumer-grade at-home monitoring device. While meant for lower-risk diagnostics, the company believes that its demand will significantly outweigh that of in-office monitoring tools. It projects that with the layering of other products and the upward trend in revenue they are currently seeing, the company itself will increase its total addressable market from$1 billion to $3 billion in no time at all. They also foresee a future addressable market of $50 billion with competitors stepping into the market.

Why are His Devices so Important?

The Bioflux is essentially a next-generation IoT wearable device, connected to a cloud-based network through built-in cellular connectivity. In fact, it doesn't need Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or any additional devices to operate or to send data. It contains an embedded real-time operating system (RTOS), where data is collected, stored and analyzed for the continued care and treatment of patients suspected of or suffering from cardiac-related diseases and comorbidities.

Dr. Al-Siddiq and his team strongly believe that healthcare's future is connected medical devices powered by real-time communication. Through the integration of big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), the company believes that it will provide better care for its patients and improve the accuracy of diagnostics across the medical industry.

The company also believes that this will allow doctors to make faster decisions, explicitly tailored to each patient's comprehensive medical needs. In addition, the device will enable physicians to collect critical information over more extended periods of time and analyze that data side by side with other comorbidities to immediately provide the best care given the scenario at hand.

Long-approved by the FDA, these devices quantify biometric changes within the human body, analyzing the data and suggesting new steps to improve the patient's overall health. By essentially creating virtual medical teams, Biotricity further enables telemedicine to be an effective tool, eliminating the need for in-hospital treatments and overnight stays when a person can be monitored at home -- before there's a problem.

With an integrated approach to long-term care, assessment and treatment, doctors can now turn passive inpatient assessments into active outpatient monitoring.

How Biotricity is Keeping Primary Care Providers "in the Loop"

In the world of diagnostics, Dr. Al-Siddiq noticed that most of the industry was outsourced. Where it stands, most doctors are usually left out of the testing and monitoring of their patients altogether. Not only are doctors left out of the process, but they're losing a potential revenue stream that could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

Real-time intervention can ultimately save lives. Using wearable devices like the Bioflux, patients will find that they can live an improved quality of life without the risk of unnecessary stroke or heart failure. In addition, physicians face less liability through faster diagnosis. On-call nurses can also dispatch help should any anomalies be detected in the arrhythmia of an at-home patient, irregularities in health data or the disconnection of a device.

Now that it has been uplisted, want to learn more about Biotricity and how this startup is saving lives? Be sure to check out https://www.biotricity.com for more info, including new devices, investor relations and how you can get involved.