ResApp

History

2022: Pfizer acquires ResApp for $116 million

At the end of September 2022, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced the purchase of a developer of a mobile application for detecting coronavirus for $116 million, which can accurately diagnose COVID-19 by analyzing the sound of a cough. We are talking about ResApp, which since 2012 has been developing an algorithm that can diagnose respiratory diseases by simply studying the sound of a patient coughing. The system was initially trained to diagnose pneumonia, but by 2019, researchers showed the technology could effectively distinguish between asthma, croup and bronchiolitis.

When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020, the team unsurprisingly quickly switched to including coronavirus diagnoses in its cough recognition technology. By the beginning of 2022, the first data from the pilot test of the algorithm showed good results.

Pfizer bought a developer of a cough coronavirus detection app for $116 million

During the test, it was found that the system can accurately determine 92% of positive cases of COVID-19 only by the sound of a cough. The system also showed 80% specificity, that is, only 2 out of every 10 people screened received false positive results. Shortly after ResApp released these results, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer initially offered about $65 million for the technology, but in an official announcement of the acquisition, the deal was completed and Pfizer bought ResApp for $116 million.

In a statement, a Pfizer spokesman said the preliminary data was encouraging and the deal was expanding the company's presence in digital healthcare. ResApp's team hopes the acquisition of Pfizer will help the technology evolve and be widely deployed in remote parts of the world. One of the original developers of the algorithm, Udant Abeiratne, said that the goal of the project was to help bring the best diagnostic tools to communities around the world.^[1]

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