Building the ‘iOS for healthcare’: Respiree’s mission to cut strain on nursing resources with smarter AI monitoring

[SINGAPORE] Many hospitals worldwide have put in place patient monitoring systems, but studies have shown that they can be notoriously inaccurate.

For instance, the system could misinterpret a minor issue, such as acid reflux, as a life-threatening heart attack. This triggers an immediate hospital-wide alert, requiring nurses to intervene and confirm the patient is safe, a process that consumes valuable time and resources.

These inaccurate alerts create “alarm fatigue” among healthcare workers and take up valuable nursing resources.

Addressing this critical inefficiency was what led former Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) researcher Gurpreet Singh to found Respiree in May 2019 to introduce a more efficient and reliable solution.

“The goal we had when we started Respiree was to reduce nursing inefficiencies, wastages and resources within the nursing domain in healthcare hospitals,” he said in an interview with The Business Times.

To achieve this, Respiree developed a wearable sensor device that, unlike traditional systems that monitor many different vital signs, focuses solely on a patient’s respiration to deliver a “precise nudge” when necessary.

This hardware is enhanced by an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered software platform that analyses the respiratory data.

The result, said Singh, is a system that delivers six times more accurately than traditional hospital alarms, allowing medical staff to focus on patients who genuinely need attention.

Breathing new life

Respiration was the clear metric of choice for Respiree, as it is often the “best clinical marker” for detecting disease progression in patients, said Singh. Despite this, many hospitals lack a way to measure it accurately.

Typically, respiration is measured manually, by nurses observing and counting a patient’s chest wall movements. This method is prone to error, especially when a patient has irregular breathing patterns, he said.

It is also particularly challenging to measure paediatric and neonatal patients, who breathe much faster, making accurate manual counting difficult.

Respiree’s method addresses these challenges by using optics to directly probe the chest wall’s movement, avoiding the inaccuracies associated with acoustic sensors or indirect measurements from pulse oximetry.

This approach provides more than just a precise breath count, said Singh. It also captures the depth of breathing and the respiratory effort – important clinical markers that offer deeper insight into a patient’s condition, particularly those who are critically ill.

From lab to market

Singh began developing the core hardware in 2017, specifically in A*Star’s Singapore Bioimaging Consortium’s laboratory. He incorporated Respiree two years later to commercialise the technology.

The company licensed the intellectual property from A*Star in early 2020 – timing that proved fortuitous. The Covid-19 pandemic made respiratory monitoring technology more relevant than ever, accelerating Respiree’s path to market.

“The fortunate thing is that between 2019 and 2020, a lot of the legwork was already done,” said Singh, explaining that crucial work on medical device safety, quality control and clinical validation was already complete.

This preparation allowed Respiree to fast-track its application, gaining approval from Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority (HSA) within just two to three months.

Even as the worldwide race to improve medical diagnostics with AI intensifies, Respiree believes it has an edge, with its high-performing and precise software and hardware.

With patient monitoring in the Asia-Pacific still largely traditional and manual, Respiree is poised to capitalise on significant opportunities to introduce its advanced solutions to the market, said Singh.

With local clearance secured, Respiree achieved a major milestone in 2022 with the European CE mark for medical devices. This paved the way for approval from Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration, and helped secure a key distribution partnership with Philips to scale into different markets.

In 2023, the company earned clearance from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its device, enabling clinical trials across the country.

It is now seeking separate FDA clearance for its AI model, 1Bio, which works with any compatible monitoring system – a strategic pivot that transforms Respiree into a software-focused business.

Achieving scale

Respiree has achieved a seven-digit figure for revenue by mid-2025 and, while not yet profitable, expects to be so by the end of 2026. This follows a revenue growth of eight times in 2024 compared to the previous year.

Singh anticipates healthy year-on-year growth as the company scales up. Respiree’s technology is already live in the US, Australia and Singapore, with Thailand and the Gulf Cooperation Council nations next on the expansion road map.

To fuel expansion, the startup recently closed a US$11.6 million Series A financing round, led by Spanish investor We Venture Capital and Temasek spinoff ClavystBio. Proceeds will support the expansion of Respiree’s commercial team and its US presence, including new company headquarters in Houston at the Texas Medical Center Innovation hub.

Singh noted that the greatest costs for any medtech company are clinical trials, regulatory submissions and talent.

“Anything that is medical device(-related) is costly... Talent is scarce, hard to find,” he said. “But if you have the right partnerships early on, I think they can support you in some of your talent development and talent sourcing.”

Beyond Philips, Respiree has also partnered with Roche Diagnostics to launch pilot programmes across the Asia-Pacific region, combining Respiree’s monitoring solutions with the Swiss healthcare company’s blood glucose management tool.

Singh’s ultimate vision is for Respiree to become the “next iOS for healthcare” – a singular software platform that provides dominant clinical insights across the entire patient journey.

The company has examined specific areas, such as predicting intensive care unit transfers, and is now mapping expansion into other spaces including emergency department triaging and discharge summary planning. It is also exploring new areas of interest, such as paediatrics and sepsis care.

“They are not incremental. They are quite substantial deltas, but at the same time, leveraging on our existing platform and modality so that we don’t have to incur additional costs,” noted Singh.