Oleg Kouzbit, Online News Managing Editor

Tomsk’s Diagnostika+, a spin-off company of Tomsk State University, has unveiled its five-year plans to develop and put into production another in its series of ‘smart’ medical instruments. It is an electronic phonendoscope that the developers claim is sensitive enough to locate even the faintest cardiac and lung murmurs. Alongside other intelligent products the company is developing, like the noninvasive LED-based diagnostics or drip-feed systems Marchmont reported on last month, the phonendoscope is an interdisciplinary project accumulating know-how from different universities and is believed to have no “direct analogs” elsewhere in the world.

Diagnostika+, a fresh resident of the Tomsk special economic zone (SEZ), has announced plans to develop by 2017 in Tomsk commercial production of an innovative electronic phonendoscope for screening diagnostics of a range of cardiopulmonary diseases.

According to the developing team, the new instrument will enable physicians to pinpoint very low-level murmurs in heart and lungs undetectable by most of current systems. Not only is the device expected to locate murmurs, Diagnostika+ says; the innovation will be able to assess the situation, almost all on its own, and then provide digital data based analysis critical for diagnosing a case.

The Tomsk scientists believe their device concept is unparalleled domestically or globally. Unlike the international competition, the new instrument is a stand-alone product requiring no computer connection. This would make it a tool of choice not only in hospitals but on ambulances as well, Diagnostika+ hopes.

The endeavor has brought together a group of researchers from four Tomsk-based universities, including Tomsk State University that has set up the innovative start-up; Siberian State Medical University; Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radio Electronics; and Tomsk Polytechnic University.

This five-year project will reportedly require a total investment of an estimated $554k expected from “one of Russia’s sizable medical insurance companies” unspecified yet. As a SEZ resident Diagnostika+ hopes to gain from a number of benefits standard for a Russian SEZ, including a ten-year property and transport tax exemption and a five-year land tax exemption. A resident is also granted profit and social tax breaks. Diagnostika+ received the Tomsk SEZ’ residency status last week.

Unfolding expertise

The sophisticated phonendoscope is another in a series of ‘smart’ medical instruments Diagnostika+ and another Tomsk State University spin-off, Inavtech, have been developing.

Last month the companies announced an ambitious effort to make telemedicine compatible medical devices that the developers claimed would enable noninvasive LED-based diagnostics of a range of human diseases and provide intelligent drip-feed and cardiopulmonary resuscitation control.

As with the phonendoscope project, serial production of those three instruments is envisioned, with the noninvasive diagnostics device slated for market by the end of this summer and the other two to come on-line next year.

The new series of medical instruments has a number of Russian patents.