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‘This is not an Apple Watch in underwear. This is a medical device in your underwear. ‘

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Talk about getting under your skin.

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For the past month, Toronto-based company Myant Inc. has been distributing Skiin, which is the biometric underwear brand that can monitor their heart by electrocardiogram (ECG) to 10,000 people with cardiovascular problems in OT.

The distribution launch has been made at an unnamed clinic in GTA, according to Milad Alizadeh-Meghrazi, vice president of research, development and partner integration at Myant, after five to seven years of development.

“Our CEO’s father had an illness and he wanted to be able to monitor him remotely and continuously,” Alizadeh-Meghrazi said of how the Skiin technology came about.

“Then the idea of ​​monitoring people through textiles came up. And cardiovascular metrics, which are one of the main things that would help highlight a person’s well-being, was the first thing we looked for. And we have it right now. We can monitor the cardiovascular system quite well and we can get a proper ECG, electrocardiogram, unlike Apple’s fancy watches and fitbits that simply map the heart rate to an optical sensor. This is not an Apple Watch in underwear. This is a medical device in your underwear. “

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Earlier this summer, testing of Skiin’s bra, men’s and women’s underwear, undershirt, and chest bands (the small electronics are sewn into a small bag on the left side) began on some 2,500 people a through a free pilot project at the Sault Area Hospital. and the nearby Algoma University in Sault St. Marie.

“They’ve already got Health Canada II (medical device) certification,” Alizadeh-Meghrazi said of the underwear.

“You really won’t find someone who does it purely textile like we do on the scale and scope that we do. All made in Toronto. “

Myant also received help from Mitacs, which helps small and medium-sized businesses secure funding for doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows from universities for short-term projects. In this case, more than 20 interns from the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, and the University of Waterloo.

The future applications of Skiin are endless, says Alizadeh-Meghrazi.

“Canada is the first to have (this technology),” he says. “This is the next greatest thing you can imagine. If people were so excited and still obsessed with cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance, guess what? This is decentralized health care. “