NL Vox · Noah Labs Vox - Detecting Worsening Heart Failure with AI-based Voice Monitoring

Heart failure (HF) is a chronic and life-threatening disease that impairs the heart's ability to pump blood, leading to high hospital admission rates and substantial costs for health systems globally. Managing HF is challenging due to the rapid deterioration of patients, leading to decompensation and hospitalization. Effective HF management aims to avoid hospitalizations through frequent monitoring and timely medication adjustments, as up to 64% of HF hospitalizations are avoidable.The existing HF monitoring methods—manual weight monitoring, telemonitoring programs, cardiac implants, and pulmonary arterial pressure devices—are inadequate. They fail to reduce hospitalization rates on a large scale, either due to imprecision, delayed detection of worsening HF, or invasive nature. As a consequence, HF patients face high re-hospitalization rates (83% hospitalized within five years), reduced life expectancy (≈50% die within five years), high costs (≈€25K), and low quality of life due to frequent hospitalizations. Healthcare providers struggle with the high-cost burden (exceeds €100Bn/year), inability to conduct timely monitoring, and lack of scalable solutions.Noah Labs introduces NL Vox, a novel patented Digital Medical Device (DMD) revolutionizing heart failure (HF) management. Utilizing AI-based voice monitoring for the first time, NL Vox detects HF decompensation up to 21 days before conventional methods, offering accurate, early worsening HF detection comparable to invasive solutions. This enables timely medication adjustments, potentially reducing HF-related hospitalizations by 30%, HF-related mortality rates by 30%, and healthcare costs by more than 30%.The objective of the EIC project is to enhance our AI model and obtain regulatory approval for market entry. Additionally, we will optimize the user interface, integrate with telemonitoring devices, and implement explainable AI techniques.