Health Connexions Partners with Serenium to Bring Urine Test for Sleep Apnea to Market.

Health Connexions helps clients in the life sciences and healthcare sectors by leveraging its network and collaborative model in consulting, market research, technology evaluations, and marketing communications services; it also provides strategic advisory services for capital raising to fund innovations, opportunities, and the growth of established organizations. Serenium is a new company with the mission to proactively screen all children and adults who snore, in order to predict and preempt chronic disease.

“We are thrilled to be able to help Serenium advance their biomarkers to the market,” says Dawn Van Dam, Health Connexions president and CEO, in a release. “Just as we are making advances in combating infectious diseases on a global scale, chronic diseases are rising as humankind’s new and long-term challenge. Serenium’s revolutionary screening process allows us to impact and prevent these costly diseases that are debilitating millions of people each day.”

Serenium’s screening technology works by detecting biomarkers that are present in people with sleep apnea. Serenium says that since sleep apnea alters the immune system, it creates a cascade of negative health pathways that ultimately lead and contribute to chronic diseases and that with its biomarkers, Serenium will be able to find those with sleep apnea early. Then physicians can treat the sleep apnea and stop or slow the costly and personally debilitating progression toward these chronic diseases, the company says.

Serenium’s screening technology is a urine test that requires no hospital visits. It is being developed to be used in a physician’s office or as a consumer home test. It is projected to cost under $50 per test, and, according to Serenium, it produces comparable results to the current gold standard for sleep apnea testing: in-lab polysomnography.

“Sleep is becoming as clinically important to consumers’ health as nutrition and exercise. Early screening with Serenium’s biomarker-based urine test can identify risks and contribute to avoiding chronic diseases,” says Cory Zwerling, CEO and chairman of Serenium. “If you know someone who snores, they may be at risk of sleep apnea and of developing any number of chronic diseases. We can empower people to pursue earlier screening with an easy-to-use, economical solution to predict and preempt costly and debilitating diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and depression.”

Serenium is currently seeking funding and support for development and entry into the global market.