Chronic respiratory and cardiac conditions, including asthma, COPD and heart failure, place sustained pressure on patients, clinicians and health systems.
Care is often episodic, with long gaps between reviews, limited objective monitoring at home and late detection of deterioration.
This leads to avoidable exacerbations, emergency admissions and rising economic burden for the NHS - with direct cardiovascular and respiratory disease costs totalling £12.3b per year1,2.
At the same time, healthcare delivery is shifting towards decentralised care, remote monitoring and digitally enabled self-management.
Patients increasingly expect clinically credible tools they can use at home, while health systems are seeking scalable solutions that support earlier intervention without increasing workforce burden.
Despite this need, many existing solutions are hardware-heavy, costly or designed primarily for clinician use, limiting their suitability for patient-led monitoring.
There remains a clear gap for an accessible, software-first solution that safely brings clinically meaningful signals, such as auscultation, into the home.
Innovation
Wednesbury-based LaennecAI is developing an AI as a Medical Device (AIaMD) digital stethoscope that transforms a standard smartphone into a clinical-grade monitoring tool for use at home and in community settings.
Using a smartphone-compatible adapter, the system captures body sounds and processes them through AI models to identify and interpret abnormal respiratory and cardiac signals.
Outputs are delivered via a mobile application, supporting earlier identification of deterioration and more informed decision-making between clinical reviews.
For patients, the solution supports guided self-management and reassurance.
For clinicians, it provides structured, objective data to support remote triage and follow-up.
For health systems, it enables a shift from reactive to proactive care, helping reduce avoidable admissions and support scalable remote monitoring.
As a software-first platform, LaennecAI avoids many of the cost and scalability limitations associated with traditional hardware-led devices, supporting wider deployment across primary, community and home-based care pathways.
WMHTIA support
- Birmingham City University (BCU): BCU supported LaennecAI across core AI development and early technical validation. This included the creation of structured, clinically labelled respiratory and cardiac audio datasets, training and internal validation of sound analysis models, and development of clinically meaningful AI outputs suitable for integration into the mobile application. Access to Life Sciences facilities enabled early feasibility testing in a simulated clinical environment. In parallel, BCU supported implementation of a regulated DevSecOps pipeline, strengthening the platform’s security and compliance foundations.
- Element Materials Technology: RegNavigator supported the development of LaennecAI’s regulatory strategy, helping to clarify the intended medical device pathway and key regulatory considerations, informing next steps towards formal compliance.
- Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG): WMG support focused on sustainability and ESG positioning, helping LaennecAI refine its ESG narrative to underpin future marketing, value proposition development and alignment with long-term market expectations.
The WMHTIA has delivered clear benefits by accelerating technical development, sharpening regulatory and commercial strategy and providing structured access to expertise across AI, regulation, sustainability and market positioning. This has supported faster decision-making, reduced uncertainty and clearer prioritisation across the innovation pathway.
A key outcome has been the public pilot launch of Zorgm, LaennecAI’s patient-facing answer engine designed to support patient understanding and self-management.
During the pilot phase, Zorgm has answered over 26,000 health-related questions from users across 103 countries, reaching more than 10,000 users within 75 days of launch (as of 27 January 2026). This pilot has validated real-world use, demonstrated patient demand and generated data to inform product refinement and future development.
The WMHTIA has also strengthened LaennecAI’s visibility and credibility within the healthcare and innovation ecosystem.
Selection into the Google for AI programme provided approximately $350,000 in AI credits, accelerating development and experimentation. Collaboration with Birmingham City University and partnership with UCLPartners (Health Innovation Network) have further strengthened the technical and clinical innovation pathway.
During this period, LaennecAI has raised £350,000 in venture capital and angel investment, alongside nearly £300,000 in grant funding, supporting continued development and progression towards product deliver
What's next?
Looking ahead, LaennecAI’s next phase focuses on launching its health coach and digital stethoscope products for patients with chronic respiratory and cardiac conditions, alongside a clinician-facing, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) answer engine grounded in trusted sources such as NICE and NHS content.
Following the public pilot phase, these products are scheduled to launch this quarter.
Arathy Varghese, Co-founder and CTO of LaennecAI, said: “The WMHTIA has helped us move faster and with greater confidence. It connected us to the right expertise at the right time, strengthened our technical and regulatory thinking, and opened doors to partnerships and funding that have materially accelerated our journey from innovation to impact.”
For more information on the work that LaennecAI is doing, visit www.laennec.ai
The WMHTIA is part of the pilot Innovation Accelerator programme, which is led by Innovate UK on behalf of UK Research and Innovation and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
This new model of funding focuses on locally-led innovation to drive economic growth and technological advancement by supporting regional innovative businesses, researchers and entrepreneurs. In the West Midlands, local leadership has been driven by a partnership comprising of the West Midlands Combined Authority, universities and other research institutions, and senior industry representatives.
Building on the £100 million already invested between 2022 and 2025, a further £30m was spread equally across three UK city-regions participating in the pilot Innovation Accelerator programme, which includes a funding boost of £4m for the WMHTIA to continue its support of Health Tech innovators in 2025/26.
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