SPIRONIC is a low cost, effective and versatile system which can be integrated into various phases of care in asthmatic patients. The innovations by the Biosignal Processing (BSP RG) team headed by Ir. Dr. Malarvili Bala Krishnan and the Hospital Pulau Pinang team led by Dr. Teo Aik Howe have opened the doors for further potential use of this new mode of assessment and monitoring of respiratory functions. BSP-RG has conducted ground-breaking research in this area for the past 5 years.
Assessment of severity of asthma is often difficult due to several reasons; children and the elderly are often unable to explain their respiratory difficulty. Some asthmatics poorly perceive the severity of their own disease. Current respiratory function assessment requires active efforts by patients, who are often unable to perform such assessments during severe acute asthmatic attacks.
SPIRONIC offers an easier mode of action, being able to continuously assess respiratory functions with minimal patient effort in various settings. SPIRONIC comes with a screen displaying the novel asthma severity index which is an easy and simple analysis tool providing a fast and precise result. Furthermore, the device incorporates a different breathing apparatus, which are portable, lightweight, and easy to use both at home and in any clinic. It comes standard with USB/SD card data storage powered by rechargeable batteries.
With the advent of Industry Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0) penetrating Malaysia, SPIRONIC is potentially an IR4.0 capable solution, bringing asthma severity monitoring to the home. Built with sophisticated and versatile sensors, data processing capabilities, simple user interface, and connectivity-ready, SPIRONIC is the right tool to provide real-time information for asthma patients when and where they need it. SPIRONIC will be the future in asthma severity monitoring practice.
MTDC plays a role in identifying technologies or innovation by local universities, in this case, the innovative work by the inventor, Ir. Dr. Malarvili Bala Krishnan team was chosen to be brought into the MTDC Symbiosis Entrepreneur program. Magnifique Technology PLT is a company under MTDC’s undergraduate program Symbiosis 3.0 that has taken initiatives to commercialize SPIRONIC.
On 24th January 2019, Magnifique Technology PLT conducted an event to soft launch the product in an event called ‘Coffee Talk-Asthma Severity Monitoring Made Simpler’ at Hotel Tenera, Bangi. Present at the event was Dato’ Norhalim Yunus, Chief Executive Officer of MTDC, Dean of Health and Wellness Research Alliance of UTM, Prof. Dr. Rosli Bin Md Illias , Director of ICC (Innovation and Commercialisation Centre) Professor Dr. Mohd Shahir Shamsir Bin Omar, Ir. Dr Malarvili Balakrishnan, Head of BioSignal Processing Research Group, UTM who headed the research in collaboration with Dr Teo Aik Howe from Hospital Pulau Pinang (see picture below taken during press conference of the event).
MTDC offers Commercialisation of Research and Development Fund (CRDF), Technology Acquisition Fund (TAF), Business Startup Fund (BSF), Business Growth Fund (BGF) and Halal Technology Development Fund to assist companies and entrepreneurs at a different level of business undertakings.
