Last Updated on Thursday, 21 May, 2020 at 3:34 pm by Andre Camilleri
The Maltese company features amongst the most innovative start-up by StartUs Insights
The meeting between Gpi (GPI: IM), a company listed on the MTA market, leader in Information Systems and Services for Health and Social Care, and Umana Medical Technologies (https://umanamedical.com/), a Maltese start-up founded in 2017, has transformed over time into a profitable synergy until, after a year of collaboration, it reached the choice of transforming the partnership into a “venture”. Gpi has now acquired control of Umana with the aim of combining the skills, vision and strengths to innovate the social-welfare models.
The Covid-19 pandemic was a decisive test case: Gpi, which had been on the field since the first days of the coronavirus emergency to provide adequate support and services to its customers, turned to the Umana team to plan and develop in a very short time, a solution that would allow you to monitor Covid-19 positive patients from their homes in real time. The collaboration has brought good results: the power of the software and cutting-edge technologies have been integrated into a unique value-added.
Umana Medical Technologies develops innovative solutions for socio-health monitoring, such as nanomaterial tattoo sensors (sensors/tattoos based on nanotechnologies), a patch easily applicable to the human body that detects the person’s vital parameters and transmits them to the Umana T1 cardiac monitor. This patch solves the problem of many traditional wearable devices that are annoying to the wearer due to their size and use. This advanced sensors opens the way in the field of long-term monitoring of physiological parameters: the aim is to create an infrastructure equivalent to that of the hospital, which guarantees the highest quality and reliability of the data collected and analyzed.
Umana constantly invests in research and development with the aim of creating non-invasive monitoring equipment and applying game changing technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT), for the collection and analysis of physiological data. The approach also includes the use of artificial intelligence, such as using specialized deep learning algorithms, combined with cloud platforms and integrated software and hardware systems.
Umana’s innovative outlook has been recognized internationally: in the ranking compiled by “StartUs Insights”, a worldwide observatory specializing in the identification of start-ups offering disruptive technologies and innovative business models, Umana occupies the 23rd position out of 30 – the analysis considered over 10,000 start up.
“The health crisis in Italy has given new space to the partnership between GPI and Umana,” explains Adrian Attard Trevisan, CEO and co-founder of Umana. “The synergy created between the teams of the two companies was immediately evident: we realized on the field that our visions and our objectives coincide. Today’s operation opens an exciting new chapter in the life of Umana Medical Technologies. Joining the Gpi Group testifies to the excellence of the product our team has worked on: joining a large Group will encourage the continuous and exponential growth that we have experienced in the past three years.”
Fausto Manzana, President and CEO of the GPI Group commented: “This acquisition is a new, important step forward for our Group: the international expansion is accompanied in this case by a significant innovative contribution from a technological point of view. A successful young start-up like Umana can make a significant contribution to our industrial project, imparting a precious ‘visionary’ dimension, the lifeblood for imagining a different and possible future. In Umana we see the same foresight and the same passion for health care that have shaped the history of Gpi in its 30 years of life.”
