Senphonix Receives Grant to Advance SleeveSense Program to Monitor Patient Vital Signs

Senphonix, Inc., a medical-technology startup developing SleeveSense™, a wearable that will continuously monitor patients’ vital signs over days, weeks, or months, announced it has received a Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I award from the U.S. National Science Foundation through America’s Seed Fund. 

The award supports engineering to strengthen the patent-pending device’s wireless and radio-frequency systems and to move it from prototype toward a manufacturable product at scale, in partnership with the University of Arizona.

In hospitals and after discharge, vital signs are typically captured as periodic spot checks, and nurses can spend up to and sometimes in excess of 20% of every shift measuring vitals manually. 

SleeveSense is designed as an automated, comfortable, long-term sleeve worn by the patient both during the hospital visit and once discharged. The device will stream multiple vital signs continuously, with the goals of removing manual processes, surfacing signs of patient deterioration earlier and giving clinicians a fuller picture after discharge.

“This award is significant validation of the critical needs SleeveSense will address,” said Mike Haldane, co-Founder and Co-CEO of Senphonix. “Continuous, comfortable, long-term monitoring can change how patient vitals are tracked both in the hospital and at home. NSF’s support lets us further engineer the technology as we prepare to go to market in 2027.”

Under the STTR Phase I award, Senphonix and UA will focus on the device’s wireless and radio-frequency performance in real hospital environments, including its antenna and power systems, and the advanced engineering required to move the sleeve toward what is expected to be significant manufacturing volumes.

The STTR award builds on earlier support from the State of Arizona, where matching grant funding from the Arizona Commerce Authority, through the WearTech Applied Research Center, backed Senphonix’s early design work. 

“Arizona has built an ecosystem where promising medical technology companies can find the support they need to grow, and Senphonix is a strong example of that pipeline at work,” said Kathleen Lee, director of applied research programs for the Partnership for Economic Innovation. “That funding gave the team the runway to move from concept to working prototype, and now, with a federal NSF award strengthening the effort, Senphonix shows what becomes possible when the right support is in place at the right time.” 

The federal award, together with founder and private funding, continues the company’s Arizona-based research and its partnership with UA.

The underlying clinical need has been affirmed by the people closest to it: in a national survey of practicing nurses, 98% (n=402) said they would support SleeveSense if it saves some of the time associated with taking manual vital signs. In a separate study, 94 percent of CFOs (n=457) indicated an intent to support adoption, especially if it can drive nursing efficiency, better patient outcomes, and avoidance of readmissions. The CFO study also identified an interest in remote patient monitoring, with SleeveSense serving as the platform.

“Translating advanced wearable sensing from the lab into a device that performs reliably in a real clinical setting is a significant engineering challenge, and it is exactly where academic research and a focused startup accomplish more together than apart,” said Philipp Gutruf, UA associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. “We are excited to bring our expertise in biosymbiotic electronics to the SleeveSense platform.”

Senphonix intends to pursue U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance for SleeveSense in early to mid-2027, once clinical testing is completed. Clinical testing is expected to begin in late 2026 or early 2027.

Photo courtesy Senphonix, Inc.