News Details – Smallcapnetwork
Wearables, IoT and Medical Monitoring - Biotricity Inc. (BTCY)
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February 2, 2024

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PDT

Good Monday morning everybody. As promised in Friday's newsletter, today we've got a new trading idea for you... one that's likely to find the success a lot of investors feel Fitbit (FIT) should have achieved but just didn't. No song and dance is needed here. Today's new Featured Stock is Biotricity (BTCY). Never heard of it? Don't worry. Most people haven't. That's because it's a young company and doesn't have a product on the market yet. That could conceivably change within a few months though, if not within a few weeks. And, given the nature and marketability of the technology, I've got a feeling the stock's going to respond like somebody flipped a light switch. Biotricity is the developer of two different but related wearable, 24/7 heart monitoring technologies. The device called bioflux is for use by caregivers in a clinical setting, remotely transmitting detailed information about the heart's functioning, which can then be analyzed by caregivers. The device known as biolife serves individuals outside of a clinical setting, largely doing the same chore. The advantage of the technology is mobility, without sacrificing accuracy. The two devices utilize the same basic technology, but are clearly addressing different markets. The device furthest along the development path is bioflux. In fact, it's much closer to the needed FDA approval than many investors may recognize. In mid-June the company filed a 510k application for bioflux. The 510k rules are the process for securing the FDA's approval of a medical device. Our research indicated that the approval time for cardiovascular medical devices is just under six months, and we're already a month into it for Biotricity's filing. There's also the possibility that the bioflux decision won't even take that long. And, while you can never say never, the odds of the FDA's green light are good, for a couple of reasons. One of those reasons is the simple fact that the FDA doesn't say "no" to devices very often. Last year, it approved 3025 medical devices, as opposed to only approving 51 drugs in 2015. The other reason the future looks bright for bioflux? It was designed from the ground up to be easy to approve, and then easy to market. As for the easy-to-approve aspect, the device consists of an ECG monitoring device and software, and that software has already been approved by the FDA in the past (and is pretty standard for ECG monitoring in hospitals and cardiac clinics). Rockyview General Hospital - a 650-bed facility in Calgary - has already been beta-testing the device, and loving it. Perhaps even more important is the fact that bioflux has been designed with insurance companies' reimbursement standards in mind. Biotricity's CEO and founder Waqaas Al-Siddiq understands the key to a successful medical device is ensuring the device in question is of a high enough quality that it satisfies the conditions required to be given a billing code. No billing code means a patient or caregiver can't seek reimbursement from an insurer. If an insurer won't pay for it, a consumer may not pay the higher-end device either, even if they need it. As Al-Siddiq recently explained: "What we did is we looked at innovating within an established business. There was an established business and billing code within the market. It's a monopolized market, and we addressed it by innovating and creating a complete solution and making it more accessible. Our model is putting a device into the physician's office, [and enabling] him to use it on every cardiac patient." It's a simple but brilliant insight, and it's why bioflux is being built with the express purpose of meriting a billing code. And it's on those two fronts where Fitbit arguably went wrong... to keep the device affordable for consumers it had to use a technology and format that didn't get accurate readings. Well, that and the fact that the company overestimated the perceived need for a mobile heart-rate monitor that wasn't quite a medical-grade device. In trying to appeal to everyone, Fitbit ended up not being marketable to enough people. On that note, while biolife is going to be marketed as a consumer device built on the same basic underlying technology as bioflux, it's still going to be the quality device it needs to be to appeal to paying consumers. As for the market, bioflux and biolife are at the intersection of three different trends, all of which are big, and growing. We said it in Friday's edition, but it bears repeating now. That is, the heart-monitoring space happens to be a market worth more than $20 billion per year, and some say it will be worth $26.7 billion by 2020. Meanwhile, the fitness market generates $75 billion worth of revenue per year. The healthcare wearable market was worth $5.1 billion in 2015, and now that such technologies are being accepted, its revenues could reach $19 billion by 2020. A small sliver of the overlap of those three markets would still be a windfall for BTCY. The usual caveats apply to this trading idea -- only invest what you can afford to lose, use limit prices for any entry, and use stops to protect yourself once you're in any position you may choose to get into. All the same, you read everything above. The bioflux device is a high-odds, low-risk way for Biotricity to get its foot in the door of several hot converging markets, bringing a smart device to the table when there's nothing else out there quite like it... despite the need. Bottom line? Biotricity is a $55 million organization about to enter a multi-billion dollar arena with a superior technology that can be paid for by insurers. That's a compelling scenario, made even more compelling by the fact that the story is just now starting to unfurl in a big way. As they say, timing is everything.