As any sufferer (or parent of a sufferer) knows, managing diabetes requires an almost-constant monitoring of physical symptoms—even at night. This is where Michael Geatz sees his opportunity.
A long-time medical-device consultant for companies such as locally based Medtronic and St. Jude Medical, Geatz founded Maple Grove–based Giant Medical in 2005 to commercialize the Cold Sweat Alarm. Resembling a wristwatch, the biosensor device monitors for symptoms of hypoglycemia—increase in perspiration and drop in skin temperature—that occur when a diabetic’s blood sugar drops too low during the night, and awakens the wearer with a beep.
The Cold Sweat Alarm grew out of Geatz’s work with Intellipatch, a Maple Grove company he founded in 2002. Geatz had hoped to market a wrist-worn pulse-sensor chip that would measure continuous heart rate to promote fitness. Unable to raise enough capital to develop the product to his satisfaction, he sold Intellipatch to a merchant banking firm. Geatz then later shifted to developing the Cold Sweat Alarm.
Giant Medical sold its first Cold Sweat Alarms in Europe in early 2006; it will start selling in the United States by the end of the year. Around 250 million people worldwide are expected to have diabetes by 2010. But Geatz says his device is marketed to the 30 million insulin-dependent people with diabetes, most of whom have the Type 1 version. “If the market were huge, I’d never be able to compete with a Medtronic,” he says.
The Cold Sweat Alarm is the first of several biosensor-based devices Giant Medical intends to bring to market. By the end of 2006, it plans to release a device for children suffering from epilepsy. Worn on the child’s wrist or ankle, the device will detect an elevated pulse, which can indicate that a seizure is coming on, and send an alert to the parents’ base unit through a radio-frequency signal. Geatz also hopes to develop heart-monitoring devices for health, fitness, and military applications after his noncompete agreement with Zynik—the Canadian company that eventually acquired Intellipatch—expires in August.
Giant Medical is raising some of its capital by courting international investors. They will be directed to invest in publicly traded subsidiaries of Giant Medical that Geatz is establishing in countries where the Cold Sweat alarm is being marketed. Subsidiaries have been set up in China and Bahrain so far. Choosing Bahrain is no accident: Muslims fasting during Ramadan can also suffer from hypoglycemia.
