Sweat is a liquid substance produced by the sweat glands that, in addition to regulating body temperature, contains a wide variety of indicators that can help us discover some secrets of human health and sports performance.
In addition to being made up of water, sweat also contains many other bodily components that can provide us with a broader view into the internal processes of the body and reveal whether these are occurring in a healthy way.
For years, the potential of sweat has been recognized by different technology companies and scientific researchers, who have tried to develop sensors capable of tracking and analyzing this fluid for the diagnosis of diseases and the improvement of performance in athletes. Recent scientific advances suggest that these systems are getting closer to commercialization.
Sweanty is a technology-based company that develops smart patches that analyze sweat and thereby offers innovative solutions to current problems. “Today, we are working on a product to prevent dehydration in athletes, but this has the potential to be applied to a multitude of applications and challenges, from disease detection to monitoring the effectiveness of drugs in Cystic Fibrosis patients. ”, explains co-founder Anna Llorella. "Our team has worked intensively on applications related to sweat, analyzing and studying its behavior in different fields," she says. “The goal is to bring products based on sweat analysis to the market and provide tools to improve people's quality of life,” she adds.
Dr. Laura Ortega, Biomedical Engineer and PhD in Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Electronic Engineer Anna Llorella, are the entrepreneurs of the project dedicated 100% to the company and responsible for managing Sweanty. Dr. Neus Sabaté, research professor at the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and doctor in Physics, and Juan Pablo Esquivel, Ikerbasque associate researcher at BCMaterials and doctor in Electronic Engineering, are the scientific advisers and contribute their experience in the creation of startups, since they founded Fuelium in 2015.
The sweating profile of athletes varies depending on their physical condition and the environmental conditions at the time the training or competition takes place. “Sweanty has created a device capable of measuring the salts excreted by sweating during physical activity, directly related to episodes of dehydration, and indicates to the athlete the most suitable hydration regimen to replace the lost salts, allowing them to reach their maximum performance and avoiding possible injuries”, explains Llorella.
In addition to monitoring hydration levels in athletes, sweat sensors could eventually be used to also improve the diagnosis of medical conditions, such as Cystic Fibrosis.
Cystic Fibrosis is a hereditary disease that affects the mucous membranes of the lungs and other organs, causing excessive mucus that prevents, among other symptoms, proper respiratory function. “The diagnosis of the disease is carried out through a sweat analysis, since those who suffer from the disease have a higher than normal chlorine content in their sweating”, comments Llorella. “Our company has developed a patch capable of analyzing the sweat of patients and showing a positive result if the salt content is above the value considered normal”, she adds. “This device has already been tested in a clinical study at the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu in Barcelona with 28 patients”, she concludes.
On November 24, the Entrepreneurship Night was held at the TecnoCampus in Mataró. The event, which brought together some 300 people, included as a novelty the first edition of the Antena TrenLab awards.
During the evening, the Sweanty Company won the Best Women-Led Entrepreneurship Award. The prize included 6,000 euros and a subsidized stay in the TecnoCampus incubator for a whole year.
"We are going to allocate the Creatic award to promote our company on social networks in order to expand our network of clients and strategic contacts in the sports sector," explains Llorella. “It is certainly a key factor in establishing Sweanty's solution as a pioneer in dehydration prevention,” she adds.
Llorella stresses that the patch for athletes is currently in the development phase, and that over the next few months they will be working on developing the online platform and providing the patch with connectivity to achieve version 1.0 of the product. "From there, we will start working on the clinical validation of the device to finally get the CE marking and reach the European market," she concludes.
