Measuring athletic and workplace performance has come a long way since using a stopwatch or simply observing a person. Today’s sensors and wearables can tell you much more about various aspects of your body, and that has a huge impact on performance and health.

For example, Epicore Biosystems has created biosensors that measure sweat and dehydration. These sensors can play a critical role in the health and performance of athletes, employees, pilots or military personnel, and much more.

Founded in 2017, Epicore is a spinout company from Northwestern University’s Center for Bio-Integrated Electronics. Dr. Roozbeh Ghaffari, co-founder and CEO of Epicore Biosystems, observed that one of the key benefits of Epicore’s wearable technology is that it provides recovery insights about an industrial worker or athlete’s hydration.

“The sensors track sweat rate, total sweat loss, sodium chloride concentration, and total sodium chloride loss,” Dr. Ghaffari reported. “These insights are captured with a soft wearable sweat sensor, analyzed through a cloud engine, and delivered directly to the wearer through a smartphone application and cloud portal. They help industrial workers and athletes understand whether they are at risk of dehydration, excessive fluid, and electrolyte loss, right at the moment. If a wearer does experience heavy losses, an alert will then trigger with specific rehydration recommendations.”

For the past three years, Epicore has been focused on broadening its use cases as well as scaling its manufacturing pipeline to support the increase in customers. Dr. Ghaffari noted that Epicore has developed new biosensing capabilities for the long-term, continuous management of sweat biomarkers to support various use cases.

“In particular, our Connected Hydration platform utilizes a reusable electronics module that is paired with a single-use microfluidic patch,” said Dr. Ghaffari. “The microfluidic patch is built using a roll-to-roll converting process, with integrated electronics and electrochemical sensors incorporated into that process.”

Dr. Ghaffari noted that Epicore has overcome a number of challenges since its inception.

“In the last year, for example, one challenge has been in striking the balance between launching products and maintaining our advanced R&D,” Dr. Ghaffari reported. “For small companies, it’s important to find the right balance between commercialization and innovation.”

Partnerships are one way to advance technology, as each partner brings their own areas of expertise. Epicore is no exception here. Most recently, Epicore announced it is partnering with 3M’s Health Care Business, a manufacturer and distributor of medical products and solutions, and Innovize Inc., a custom medical device manufacturer.  3M is providing more than a half dozen medical-grade products for Epicore Biosystems, while Innovize’s roll-to-roll production can produce functional microfluidic components and finished products.

“We have a number of partnerships, including our recently announced partnership with Innovize and 3M,” Dr. Ghaffari said. “Innovize provides manufacturing support to produce our wearable products at scale, while 3M provides its medical-grade materials for our wearable products.

“We also have partnerships in the sports and fitness sector, with leading brands like PepsiCo and Gatorade,” Dr. Ghaffari added. “In addition to those, we also have several partnerships with multinational corporations, clinical organizations, and Department of Defense divisions interested in addressing heat stress and industrial safety.

“A few examples include Chevron Corp., Office of Naval Research, US Air Force, NIH, and Lurie Children’s Hospital. Earlier this year we also partnered with Denka to pilot and distribute our portfolio of advanced wearable hydration solutions in Japan and expand into Asia markets.”

Dr. Ghaffari noted that Epicore’s technology and clinically validated products are ideal for—and are currently being deployed by—leading brands in the sports and fitness, occupational safety, and clinical trials industries. It is certain that Epicore’s biosensor technology will continue to grow in use in the coming years.

“Our suite of sweat-sensing wearables includes the Gx Sweat Patch created in partnership with PepsiCo and Gatorade, the Discovery Patch® Sweat Collection System, and the Connected Hydration wearable hydration sensor and mobile application tailored for industrial athletes and sports,” Dr. Ghaffari reported. “Our Connected Hydration solution is currently being utilized by Chevron to protect its offshore workers from the long-term effects of dehydration by providing their real-time hydration status.

“Sweat quantification and analysis for hydration and health management are nascent with enormous potential,” Dr. Ghaffari concluded. “Hydration management across various use cases only just scratches the surface of what is possible. As we expand into additional sweat biomarkers, we anticipate launching new products in new consumer health, wellness, and health management verticals.”