A revolutionary personal fertility sensor that sends you a message- “You are about to ovulate”

A Medical Device Premier Innovation summit was held recently at Minneapolis, MN by MedTech Strategist in association with The Medical Alley Association. About more than 40 start-up and emerging medical companies presented their technologies and devices at the summit.

Among the display was “Priya”, a vaginal temperature sensor that is being developed to wirelessly capture your continuous core temperature to detect the subtle changes that occur PRIOR to ovulation. 

Priya is developed by Prima-Temp, a medical device and technology  company situated in Boulder, CO, USA.

Priya is currently undergoing clinical trials, the intravaginal ring directly sends the temperature data to Priya App on the patients’ smartphone. When the subtle fall in temperature before ovulation is detected, the smartphone alerts the women.

Priya is an intravaginal ring made from medical-grade silicone form-factor and have a wireless continuous temperature sensor inserted within it. It’s dimensions and flexibility are similar to Estring®. Women are using these contraceptive vaginal rings or estrogen containing rings since may years. Prima-Temp just replaced the medications with a very sensitive sensor that measures core body temperature. Currently an algorithm is being tested to detect the DIP in temperature prior to ovulation.

This device has no extra monitor, urine strips or other extra parts that needs to be attached or monitored. The patient only needs to pair the ring with the app on the smartphone and insert the ring in the vagina.

Unlike the Basal Body Temperature (BBT), Priya monitors the internal core temperature continuously, which has been shown to more precise than oral or skin temperature. Based on this continuous core monitoring, the algorithms developed for Priya have been shown to achieve a 99% sensitivity for detection of ovulation, with a 99% percent accuracy in clinical trials.

Women’s body shows a striking diurnal variation and exhibit a pattern that is has been established as highly reliable marker for circadian rhythm. This pattern shows a distinct dip in body temperature 48- hours period prior to ovulation which is detected by the continuous monitoring by the ring sensors.