MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY FOR INNOVATIVE DIAGNOSTICS

Dear valued business partners,

After SOMNOmedics’ 23rd year I would like to take this opportunity to take a special look back at the year 2023 and look ahead to 2024.

Many may ask, why now?

For one thing, 2023 was a particularly successful year for SOMNOmedics. Secondly, I am making up for what I missed at this year’s Christmas party.

An increase in sales of more than 20%, and even more than 30% in our international business, is a proud achievement. Our targets were even higher, but we ran out of a bit of steam on the home stretch.

We made great progress in various areas in 2023 and were able to realize part of our vision for the future.

After 23 years, SOMNOmedics has been transformed from a GmbH into a stock corporation (AG).

With this step, we want to consolidate our international market position with our successful sales partners. Vivisol has already acquired a 15 % stake. In Europe in particular, the cooperation with Vivisol has developed exceptionally well and we will expand this cooperation in other countries.

Additionally, employees of SOMNOmedics and old companions have also invested in the shares of SOMNOmedics AG as private individuals.

25% of the shares will be transferred to the Anne Foundation. After 6 years, I am thus also fulfilling a promise to commit SOMNOmedics to charitable work in the long term.

The transfer of the 25% +1 shares to the Anne Foundation also ensures that SOMNOmedics cannot be sold in the future. The rather depressing fate of many companies, particularly in the sleep market in recent decades, exemplified by CNS, MAP, Stimmotron, Schwarzer and Embla, clearly show that after a short time, not much remains of formerly innovative products and companies after a sale. It is the declared aim that 50%+1 of the shares remain in family ownership to secure the future of SOMNOmedics.

The 25% transfer of the shares to the foundation also means that 25% of the profit will be transferred to the foundation on a pro rata basis each year. I am very grateful that our employees support and contribute to this charitable, long-term commitment.

In strategic terms 2023 was also a special year. We successfully implemented the first step of our concept for developing the company from a leading sleep diagnostics company into a global manufacturer of medical technology. The idea is that with the increasingly long development and approval times for medical devices, we can use our existing expertise and know-how in sleep medicine to find applications in other medical technology areas by making simple, small modifications to our products. And indeed, sleep diagnostics offers almost unlimited possibilities here – after all, it is closely linked to diagnostics in many medical specialties.

A good example of this is our ABPM Pro – the long-term blood pressure monitor of the future – developed from the PTT derivations of sleep medicine at the end of the 1990s.

Or our Narcoguide – an anesthesia depth measuring device derived from our PSG Systems.

We will certainly make further progress in this area and offer additional products, particularly in the field of post-operative monitoring and non-invasive blood pressure measurement.

In the area of sleep, we want to defend and further expand our leading position and are focusing primarily on the following key areas:

– Wireless PG / PSG – using the latest technologies to achieve even greater comfort and virtually feedback-free signal transmission

– Simple screening procedures for neurological sleep disorders

– Simplified analysis and evaluation of polysomnographies through the use of AI algorithms

 

We will also look at the possibilities of treating sleep disorders and, in particular, psychiatric and neurological diseases and develop our contribution to new treatment methods.

Detection of dementia based on sleep behavior, deep sleep stimulation as a possible early therapy, as well as acoustic stimulation and selective sleep deprivation are on our agenda.

Not all of these projects will be crowned with success, but if we can achieve a breakthrough in even one of them, it would be a very satisfying contribution.

Especially in this day and age, making a meaningful contribution to the good of society is one of the most valuable goods.

 

Research priorities:

Cardiovascular risk as a result of sleep disorders – the previously used index values such as AHI or RDI or ODI or PLMI do not seem to be the last word on this subject.

In this context, we have also decided to offer an annual prize of 10,000 euros for outstanding work that sheds light on the physiological relationship between sleep disorders and cardiovascular risk.

In order to promote interdisciplinary cooperation, this prize will be awarded in equal parts within the DGSM and the ESH.

On another important note, with the transformation of SOMNOmedics into a stock corporation, we have also initiated a generational change. As of January, our long-standing employees Julia Hartmann and Anja Groner will join the company’s Management Board.

We look forward to you accompanying us on our further path with critical and also benevolent advice, possibly also in the context of validation and application studies.

Remember that a company like SOMNOmedics can develop new methods and make them available, but it is up to you to use them.

With this in mind, I wish you a merry Christmas and a good start to the new year 2024.

Thank you for your loyalty to SOMNOmedics.

Your,

Gert Küchler