ARPA-H Bets on Esperto's Calibration-Free Blood Pressure Wearable

IRVINE, CA – April 28, 2026 – Medical technology startup Esperto Medical has secured a significant federal award to develop what could be a holy grail of personal health: a wearable, continuous blood pressure monitor that never needs calibration. The company announced today it received a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the U.S. government’s high-risk, high-reward health innovation engine.

The funding will fuel the development of a device based on Esperto’s proprietary Resonance Sonomanometry™ (RSM) technology. The project aims to miniaturize the ultrasound-based system into a wireless wearable, promising a future where managing hypertension is as simple as wearing a watch, but with far greater accuracy than current cuffless options.

The End of the Inflatable Cuff?

For over a century, the core method for measuring blood pressure has remained stubbornly mechanical: an inflatable cuff squeezes an artery shut and then slowly releases. While effective, this method provides only isolated snapshots in time, potentially missing dangerous fluctuations and causing patient discomfort. The rise of smartwatches and fitness trackers has introduced cuffless alternatives, but these have been plagued by their own significant limitations.

Most current wearables use optical sensors (photoplethysmography, or PPG) to detect changes in blood volume, and then use algorithms to infer an estimated blood pressure. This indirect approach requires frequent calibration against a traditional cuff and can suffer from inaccuracies due to motion, body position, and a well-documented bias that reduces effectiveness on individuals with darker skin tones.

Esperto’s RSM technology represents a fundamental departure. Instead of inferring, it aims to directly measure blood pressure. The system uses ultrasound to gently vibrate the arterial wall, detecting its resonant frequency. By combining this data with measurements of the artery's radius and wall thickness, the device can calculate arterial tension—and thus blood pressure—based on a core principle of physics known as Laplace's law. Because it is a direct physical measurement, the need for external calibration is eliminated.

A Strategic Bet from America's Health Moonshot Agency

The backing from ARPA-H provides not only crucial funding but also a powerful vote of confidence. Established in 2022 and modeled after the legendary Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), ARPA-H was created to fast-track transformative breakthroughs for America’s most pressing health challenges. Its mission is to fund ambitious projects that are often deemed too risky for traditional public or private investment.

Esperto’s award comes from the agency’s Scalable Solutions Mission Office, which focuses on ensuring that new technologies can be distributed broadly and equitably. The funding is part of the federal SBIR program, often called “America’s Seed Fund,” which allows small businesses to retain intellectual property while conducting research with commercial potential. This Phase I award is specifically for establishing the technical feasibility and planning required to shrink Esperto's current prototype into a commercially viable wearable form factor.

“This ARPA-H award directly aligns with Esperto's strategy of translating the RSM technology into a wearable remote patient monitoring device,” said Alaina Rajagopal, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Esperto Medical, in the company's announcement. “Because RSM measures blood pressure directly rather than inferring it from other physiologic signals, and because it requires no calibration, we believe it offers significant advantages as a user-friendly and clinically reliable remote monitoring solution.”

Navigating a Crowded Field of Wearables

Esperto Medical is entering a bustling and lucrative market. The global wearable blood pressure monitor market was valued at over $2 billion in 2024 and is projected by some analysts to exceed $8 billion by 2034. Competitors range from established medical device companies like Omron to consumer tech giants like Samsung and Apple, alongside innovative startups such as Biobeat and Aktiia.

However, most of these players rely on the same underlying optical or pulse-wave-transit-time technologies that necessitate calibration and struggle with accuracy. Esperto’s unique ultrasound-based approach could allow it to sidestep these persistent issues, giving it a powerful competitive edge if successfully miniaturized. By providing absolute, continuous blood pressure values without relying on machine-learning algorithms trained on demographic data, the technology also promises to be more inclusive and equitable across diverse populations.

The challenge is significant. Translating a complex ultrasound system from a lab prototype into a sleek, power-efficient, and cost-effective consumer device is a monumental engineering task. The Phase I funding is the first step on that difficult path.

The Billion-Patient Problem

The stakes could not be higher. Hypertension is a global health crisis, affecting an estimated 1.28 billion adults and serving as a leading risk factor for heart attack, stroke, kidney disease, and dementia. A core challenge in managing the condition is the lack of comprehensive data. Infrequent readings at a doctor’s office can lead to misdiagnoses like “white coat hypertension” (high readings due to anxiety) or “masked hypertension” (normal readings at the clinic but high readings elsewhere).

A device that provides a continuous, accurate stream of data would be transformative. It would allow clinicians to see how a patient’s blood pressure responds to medication, diet, exercise, and stress throughout the day and night. This rich dataset could enable truly personalized medicine, helping to fine-tune treatments, prevent catastrophic events, and empower patients to take a more active role in managing their own health.

If Esperto Medical can deliver on the promise of its technology, the impact would extend far beyond just another gadget. It could fundamentally change how a billion people and their doctors approach one of the world's most common and dangerous chronic conditions, ushering in a new era of proactive and democratized healthcare.