Medical Device Daily

PARIS — "Wherever there is a fire extinguisher, there should also be a defibrillator," Patrick Fornas, the CEO of Easydentic Group (Aix-en-Provence, France) proclaimed in launching a novel device to provide online telephone assistance for an automated external defibrillator in the workplace.

Unlike the U.S. where defibrillators are more widely available for an urgent response to a cardiac crisis, these devices are less common in public spaces in Europe.

Theoretically, there should be 500,000 defibrillators installed in France, or one for every 1,000 people, said Fornas, where today there are between 20,000 and 30,000 installed across the country.

"In France a person dies of a heart attack every six minutes, and we have one of the lowest survival rates in the world," he said.

Despite a 2007 administrative decree in France clearing the way for greater access to emergency defibrillators, only 4% of people experiencing a heart attack in public here receive such assistance compared to 40% in the U.S.

Fornas, whose company provides biometric access control for large enterprises in betting the new DOC (D fibrillateur Op rationnel Connect ) can win a 25% share of the potential market for public access defibrillators by targeting the workplace.

DOC is based on the popular HeartStart automated external defibrillator from Philips Electronics (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), designed to be used by anyone assisting a heart attack victim, to which Easydentic has added portable telephone capabilities that are supported by a 24/7 call center, Mondial Assistance, operated by the insurance group Allianz (Munich, Germany).

The French telephone operator SFR is a partner in the DOC program providing the SIM chip and connectivity.

When the DOC device is detached from its housing, an alarm is triggered at Mondial Assistance.

If the handle that activates the defibrillator is not pulled within 90 seconds, the operator comes on line to offer assistance to the user, often someone with no experience who is following the instructions on the device.

"It is not hard to imagine the stress and uncertainty a person experiences trying to use the device, which they have possibly never seen before, on someone suddenly having a heart attack," said Caroline de Corlieu with Easydentic.

"The operator can talk the user through the experience," she said, adding that an emergency medical team will already be in transit, thanks to the automatic transmission of GPS coordinates from the device.

A business or property owner purchases the DOC device and contracts for the service for a monthly fee of 14.00 ($5.40).

The DOC contract also assures twice daily remote verifications that the device is in working order, and if a device fails to pass the remote testing, it is replaced.

Despite the rising incidence of heart attacks among an aging population, and the government support for defibrillators, the market in France and elsewhere in Europe has been stalled at a low level of penetration.

Fornas believes, at least in the workplace, the Easydentic DOC can break through the obstacles to greater penetration.

Caroline de Corlieu at Easydentic told Medical Device Daily that the company received "an extraordinary response" after a press conference following the product launch in early February and that the first installations of 87 devices will begin this week.

Easydentic's expansion into a new service line for its existing base of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) was also greeted with enthusiasm on the Alternext Paris stock exchange where the company's stock jumped more than 12% to 18.60 ($11.65), boosting the company's capitalization from €77 million ($104 million) in 2009 to €94.57 million ($128 million).

Easydentic, which is expected to report revenues of $100 million for 2009, said it expects to sell 10,000 DOC systems in 2010 earning €40 million ($54 million) in revenues.

The company said the governments of Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal and Luxembourg have recently approved the use of automated external defibrillators by the public and that it will build on its existing sales force in those markets.

Established in 2004, Easydentic has seen vigorous sales growth each year of its biometric access control devices for SMEs.

Yet in early March the company is expected to report a loss and its first revenue decline in its short history.

"In two words 'the crisis' explains the slowdown, in part," said de Corlieu, adding that a six-month delay in authorization for a new access device by a French agency also slowed sales.

In early 2010 Easydentic opened its first offices in the U.S. in New Jersey for its access systems, and does not expect to offer the DOC device in the U.S. market in the near term.