Hydration and metabolic health specialist Epicore Biosystems announced today that it has acquired Eccrine Systems and its advanced aptamer-based sweat sensing technology that is used for precision medicine and adherence monitoring. Eccrine’s aptamer-based sensors have applications in stress, pain, and other healthcare management applications and the deal bolsters Epicore’s intellectual property, which already includes more than 100 patents issued or pending.
“The acquisition of Eccrine Systems’ assets brings a complementary set of biosensing capabilities to Epicore,” said Epicore CEO and co-founder Dr. Roozbeh Ghaffari. “Epicore is leading the wearable sweat sensing space with products in the marketplace and an ever-expanding set of foundational technologies and sensing capabilities.”
The acquisition comes just three months after Epicore raised $10 million in a Series A funding that included investments from Chevron Technology Ventures, Alumni Ventures and seed investor Joyance Partners. They joined Epicore’s longstanding strategic backers and customers, including PepsiCo, the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, National Institutes of Health, and NextFlex.
The company was spun out of Northwestern University’s Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics, which developed a proprietary wearable “skin-like” microfluidic patch designed to capture eccrine sweat and offer real-time insights through its biochemical-sensing platform. Epicore’s products provide personalized data, that includes hydration, stress, and glucose levels, for applications in health management, sports performance, industrial safety, hydration.
“We have been closely collaborating with our customers and clinical partners to capture health insights that go beyond the traditional biometrics—like steps and heart rate and heart rate variability—by tapping into a rich, new source of data gleaned from tiny droplets of sweat,” Ghaffari noted at the time of the financing. “Onboarding this established group of investors and partners will help propel our efforts to revolutionize personalized recovery and metabolic health management.”
Following the Gx Sweat Patch launch, Epicore conducted a summer trial with Chevron Technology Ventures to deploy wireless sweat patches to continuously monitor hydration of workers facing increased risk of heat stress. Chevron was one of the lead investors in Epicore’s Series A, which was announced in February 2022.
Epicore is also actively deploying its first medical product in remote clinical research trials to analyze sweat biomarkers for pharmaceutical, military, sports & fitness, and food & beverage applications. The Discovery Patch System is registered with the FDA as a Class I device.
Concurrent to the acquisition, Epicore announced it added former Editas and Time, Inc. CEO Laura Lang to its Board of Directors. Lang is credited with growing Digitas to become the largest global digital marketing network. Later, serving as CEO of Time Inc., a division of Time Warner, she led the company’s digital transformation before going public.
“Epicore’s suite of wearable products and sensing technology stands to transform how we track and treat a whole host of health conditions, from hydration to nutrition, even stress,” said Lang. “The potential of this technology is extraordinary, and I am thrilled to be joining Epicore’s board and working with its management team to bring it to scale.”
