Abdul Latif Jameel Health & Melody International announce strategic collaboration reducing perinatal emergencies & deaths in a territory of over 1.9 billion people across selected Asian, Middle East & African markets
October 26, 2021
Remote monitoring and analysis capability enables frequent and long-term real-time supervision of expectant mothers in remote locations and high-risk pregnancies
Simple to use, small, portable, lightweight, wireless and affordable the ‘Melody i Mobile Fetal Monitor iCTG’ reduces stress of expectant mothers.
Founded in 2020, Abdul Latif Jameel Health was created as a response to the ongoing global disparity in access to modern medical care, most notably across emerging economies of the developing world. The Jameel Family’s healthcare activities began with the founding of the non-profit Abdul Latif Jameel Rehabilitation Hospital in Jeddah in 1997.
Africa: October 26, 2021:Abdul Latif Jameel Health (through Abdul Latif Jameel General Trading Co., Japan) announced a new collaboration with Melody Internationalsigning a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the exclusive distribution of Melody’s innovative remote ‘Melody i Mobile Fetal Monitor iCTG’, a cloud-based mobile wireless fetal monitor platform, across selected markets in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa covering a territory of over 1.9 billion people.
This new collaboration aims to address the lack of access to adequate fetal monitoring in many countries with unmet needs due to limited availability of medical facilities and maternity physicians, or those with geographically dispersed populations not easily able to visit primary health care.
Melody has developed a convenient, smart and highly portable remote mobile fetal monitoring device to assist in problematic or high-risk situations, enabling safer and more secure births for mothers. Their integrated platform comprises a fetal heart monitor (with in-built speaker in the transducer, that also functions as a fetal doppler); a uterine contraction monitor (external tocometer); and a smart tablet device to see data in real-time and connect to the internet.
Approved by Japan’s Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency of Japan (PDMA)[1]; the Thai FDA, and currently preparing application for USA FDA approval, Melody’s iCTG is already widely used across many hospitals in Japan. Its effectiveness has been proven in a variety of clinical cases, including as a partial alternative to periodic medical checkups for pregnant women living in remote or isolated areas and frequent and long-term monitoring of high-risk pregnancies which require regular tests such as mothers of late child bearing age and those with risks of premature labor. These cases can be successfully monitored by clinicians analyzing the data remotely via the internet whilst the mother wears the device at home. This remote screening capability enables a quick intervention if necessary, decreasing a risk for unexpected or emergency delivery as a result.
Furthermore, collaboration between emergency transport services and hospitals during critical situations enables real-time data to be accessed by doctors to monitor the fetus’ condition during transit and for the receiving hospital to prepare a treatment plan before arrival, maximizing the likelihood of a successful outcome.
Compared to conventional fetal monitors, which can be large and expensive, the innovative Japanese technology of the Melody i Fetal Monitor iCTG is considered unique.
The system is affordable, portable, convenient and paperless, sending data to the tablet display or smart devices.
The transducer’s weight is close to that of common smartphones and one hour’s charge provides up to 6 hours on monitoring capability.
Commenting on the signing of the MoU, Yhuko OGATA, (尾形 優子) Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Melody International said:
“We are delighted to be partnering with Abdul Latif Jameel Health with their mission aligned to our own so together we can bring this innovative Japanese technology to a wider population reducing risk and saving lives across Asia, the Middle East and Africa, where such perinatal monitoring capability is not so easily available.”
Shigeki ENAMI (榎並滋喜) President, Abdul Latif Jameel General Trading Co., said “We will continue to work with partners such as Melody to bring the very best of Japanese innovation and technological advancement to truly benefit the wider world.”
Akram Bouchenaki, Chief Executive Officer, Abdul Latif Jameel Health further commented: “Abdul Latif Jameel Health believes that this innovative and intuitive monitoring system will be of great value in the accelerating accessibility to perinatal monitoring and improving the outcome for millions. In collaboration with Melody International, we aim to reduce the rate of perinatal deaths and continue our mission to create a more inclusive healthcare environment in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.”
About Abdul Latif Jameel Health
Backed by Abdul Latif Jameel, one of the most respected diversified family businesses and investors with a 75-year heritage, deep roots, and established networks alongside a multi-sector presence in 30 countries across six continents, Abdul Latif Jameel Health is uniquely positioned as a trusted partner in realizing major innovations and opportunities in the healthcare world.
Abdul Latif Jameel Healthreflects the Jameel family’s long-established commitment to innovating for a better future through Community Jameel, an international organization supporting science and technology-led solutions to global challenges. Community Jameel and MITco-founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (Jameel Clinic) inSeptember 2018– which has rapidly become the very epicenter of AI and healthcare at MIT– and the Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics (Jameel Institute) co-founded with Imperial College London, in October 2019, using novel data analytics to reduce global risk of preventable disease most recently including the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, and strengthening health systems in the most fragile settings.
Abdul Latif Jameel Health takes this commitment into the commercial environment addressing tangible real-world needs today, for a better tomorrow. It is focused on health care inclusion in the global south, accelerating access to modern medical care for those who need it most by opening up/growing new markets for distribution of existing solutions and investing in the future of MedTech.
About Abdul Latif Jameel General Trading Co. Ltd.
(headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, President and Representative Director: Shigeki ENAMI)
Established in 1996 as HOBI Co. Ltd., an affiliated office of Abdul Latif Jameel Company Ltd, the business focused on exports of vehicles manufactured by the Toyota Group to the Middle East. Today, as Abdul Latif Jameel General Trading Co. Ltd., we introduce Japanese companies and their products and services worldwide, while maintaining our core businesses centered on the Middle East and Asia.
About Melody International
(headquartered in Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture, Representative Director: Yhuko OGA)
Melody International applies Japanese maternal monitoring technology to develop, produce, and market products that protect fetal and maternal health at any time and anywhere, and support safe and secure births.
In 1974, Prof. Kazuhiro Hara and Prof. Yasuhito Takeuchi created a disruptive breakthrough on Doppler-based fetal monitoring with their ‘real time adaptive autocorrelation’ method which has since become a worldwide de-facto standard method in this field, implemented in virtually all clinical fetal monitoring to-date. Melody International Ltd. developed iCTG - the smallest approved fetal monitor on the market – using this same principle. Despite its size, iCTG has equivalent functions to larger and more expensive conventional machines and is approved by the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency of Japan (230AFBZX00024000). Until now, such devices were available only inside the hospital environment and used by trained personnel, but iCTG’s portability allows it to be used at any location and its intuitive design means that even non-medical personnel can use it easily.
