Breathe Technologies is bringing a bit of disruption to the staid ventilator market: NIOV, a portable ventilator, can help patients breathe easier both inside and outside the hospital. But perhaps because innovation in this field isn’t common, the company is meeting resistance from some payors, most notably the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which doesn’t see the device as a ventilator but rather another form of oxygen therapy.

An estimated 15 million Americans have obstructive sleep apnea severe enough to warrant treatment, but this field has been chronically underserved by traditional continuous positive airway pressure systems that are inconvenient and uncomfortable to use. To address this problem, CPAP manufacturers are making design improvements to optimize comfort and compliance; at the same time, promising new technologies are emerging – including neurostimulation devices for OSA – that could help reshape the future management of this often overlooked, but serious disorder.

Respinova Ltd. has developed a noninvasive home-use device to help patients manage COPD’s debilitating symptoms. The PulseHaler is similar to continuous positive airway pressure devices used for sleep apnea, but it is designed to treat the very small terminal airways that are blocked as a result of COPD.

Sleep apnea is now widely recognized as an underlying factor for major CV diseases and metabolic disorders, making it a huge market opportunity. ApniCure hopes that by avoiding the CPAP masks that patients hate while using the differential pressure therapy that doctors and payors like, it can unlock this potential blockbuster market.