Forbes, Feb 2023 by Steven Aquino
Roozbeh Ghaffari, who goes by “Rooz” to the people who know him, is co-founder and chief executive of Epicore Biosystems. In a recent interview with me conducted over email, he described his company as “a digital health company developing advanced sweat-sensing wearables that provide real-time, personalized health insights for hydration, stress, and wellness.” At CES in Las Vegas last month, Epicore showcased its newest connected wearable device. According to the company’s press release, the product, called the Connected Hydration sweat patch, is designed to “first wearable to continuously measure sweat fluid and electrolyte losses while monitoring skin temperature and movement.” The advent of the device joins a family of like-minded products, including the Gx Sweat Patch, the Discovery Patch Sweat Collection System, and the Connected Hydration sensor.
Epicore’s products aren’t necessarily dedicated to being consumer-facing, mass market wearables in the ways Apple has positioned Apple Watch and AirPods over the last decade. (Apple Watch Ultra, which I reviewed at the beginning of January, is a notable exception marketing-wise.) Ghaffari said his team’s technologies are ideal solutions for extreme athletes or frontline workers in construction or agriculture, where manual labor comprises the majority of a person’s duties.
“[Our] technology will notify you when it is time to hydrate,” he said.
It’s also important to note Epicore’s approach to tracking a person’s hydration is decidedly more aggressive—not to mention more high-tech—than simpler, more passive water-tracking apps. For example, WaterMinder, a popular option on iOS and Android, relies on manual tallying by the user as opposed to Epicore’s fancy-pants, sensor-focused approach. Both are working towards the same goal, but the methodologies for achieving it are diametrically opposed from each other.
When asked why Epicore chose to obsess over hydration, Ghaffari responded by tacitly acknowledging water’s essentiality to life by mentioning one reason: climate change. With the planet’s temperature continuing to climb at a worryingly steady clip, hotter temperatures play a central role in precipitating cognitive and physical decline. He cited the rise of intense industrial working conditions and the mortal cost of said intensity as motivating forces to help people replenish their body’s water supply more adequately—and, crucially for work, with more frequency.
As for who benefits for monitoring their hydration levels, Ghaffari told me the concept is pretty egalitarian. Anyone can feel better, literally and figuratively speaking, from knowing their water intake. In an accessibility sense, products like Epicore’s can be useful for people who need to constantly stay hydrated in order to manage certain conditions; as well, the fact everything is monitored through an app means collection is automatic and thus reduces cognitive load. “Proper hydration is critical for healthy living and wellness—whether you’re a fitness fanatic, a world-class athlete, or a worker on the frontlines,” Ghaffari said.
In fact, members of the disability community have expressed a strong interest in Epicore’s products in recent times. Ghaffari said the company has “received significant inbound requests and questions from the cystic fibrosis and pre-diabetes communities.” He added Epicore has partnered with Chicago’s Anne and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital to conduct field studies using Epicore’s tech that track “sweat biomarkers remotely in patients with cystic fibrosis.”
The results thus far have been encouraging. “Although these are early-stage feasibility studies, they have been published [in medical journals] and highlight where this wearable hydration technology could go,” Ghaffari said. Other feedback has been positive as well. Epicore has solicited opinions from over a thousand people spanning a variety of industries and roles over the last few years. They’ve spoken to people young and old, professional athletes, and more casual exercisers. All this investigation and research has been done in the name of making what Epicore builds even better. They aren’t resting on their laurels.
“We have made it core to our mission to publish our sweat-sensing measurements along with the targeted demographics data versus the gold standard sweat-sensing techniques in peer-reviewed journals,” Ghaffari said. “The most critical finding was a realization early on that sweat profiles (i.e., sweat loss, sodium chloride loss, and sweating rate measurements) and associated biometric data (skin temperature, activity score) vary considerably across individuals. We’re talking about [ten times], depending on your metabolism, weather patterns, diet, and sleep. This represents both an opportunity and challenge to engineer a wearable product and algorithms that address a broad swath of industrial workers and athletes out there. For Connected Hydration, the user feedback and engagement on the rehydration recommendations in the mobile app have been incredibly helpful, overall very positive, and important to track and iterate.”
Moving forward, Ghaffari said Epicore’s goal is simple: own their niche.
“Our overarching goal is to develop and deploy novel wearable technologies that drive improvements and advancements in health and wellness. The Gx Sweat Patch, Discovery Patch, and Connected Hydration are manifestations of this vision,” he said of Epicore’s mission. “As our broader society formulates strategies to combat the effects of heat, dehydration, and malnutrition, we want to be the go-to solution to help with personalized hydration and nutrition management by making our technology accessible and far-reaching across the world.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenaquino/2023/02/08/biotech-startup-epicore-biosystems-wants-to-make-tracking-hydration-health-more-accessible-to-everyone/?sh=5b3e745a21e2