ROCHESTER, N.Y., Sept. 17, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Richard A. Kaplan, CEO of Torvec, Inc. (OTCQB:TOVC), announces a name change for the company. He states, "We have split the company into two divisions. The CURA Division will oversee our Fatigue Management Consulting business, and the Aegis Division will oversee our Power and Hydraulic business." The new name of the company will be CurAegis Technologies Inc. This will be used as a DBA until the next shareholders' meeting when we will officially change the name. Mr. Kaplan states: "We feel these changes more accurately reflect the vision and direction of the company and will create better transparency and understanding to our shareholders and our customers." You can see the new logo on our website, Torvec.com.
We are very excited about the tremendous potential of our CURA division. Sleep and Fatigue Management is an industry in its infancy and we feel we can be in the forefront.
The unchecked Degradation of an individual's Alertness is a growing concern and the consequences in some areas are approaching epidemic proportions. As an example, it is estimated that 250,000 drivers per day fall asleep at the wheel. Serious and fatal truck, bus, train and automobile accidents are occurring at an alarming rate. Many injuries and accidents in manufacturing plants are fatigue related. The purpose of monitoring alertness is to prevent these and other emergency situations from happening rather than dealing with them after the fact. For instance, waking someone up after they have fallen asleep at the wheel is too late.
Our goal is to develop a robust offering of products and programs that evaluate, monitor and help alleviate sleep and fatigue problems and the disastrous outcomes they can create. Up until now we know of no comprehensive programs that effectively and efficiently deal with these issues.
Sleep is at the core of wellness and alertness. Problems with sleep and rest manifest themselves in individuals by compromising the immune system, creating stress on the body, and, in turn, affects their quality of life as well as longevity. For businesses and other organizations they manifest themselves in lower productivity, higher absenteeism, more mistakes and accidents and lower moral.
The MyCadianTM Watch is a wearable device consisting of the latest physiological monitoring hardware. Along with the proprietary CURATM software, it is intended to identify a Degradation of Alertness in a user and help remedy the problem. This is especially important when an individual's alertness is essential in properly performing tasks and fulfilling responsibilities. The MyCadianTM Watch may also assist the user in remaining alert by periodically providing a stimulus. This can create real, positive and powerful changes in many areas.
In the Fatigue Management Consulting industry one of the biggest challenges for consultants is assessing the problems and needs of large employee populations. With our system, employees can wear the watch for a prescribed period of time in which it learns their personal rhythms, sleep habits, and other pertinent information. We can then correlate this information into a CURATM Wellness Index for the organization. This will give the company an overview of their employee population and how serious a problem they may have. We then start educating and training individuals with sleep and/or alertness problems and have a significant effect on their quality of life, health care costs, longevity and attitude. All this can be achieved while maintaining an individual's confidentiality.
The MyCadianTM Watch and CURATM Systems have the following UNIQUE advantages of:
- A unique combination of biological and motion measurements that communicates information relating to sleep and alertness with minimal distraction or disruption to normal activities.
- A numerical and color coded risk-assessment analysis that is easy to understand and react to.
- CURATM is an easy to use software package that distils complex data into simple, actionable information. CURATM is designed to work on both mobile and desktop platforms.
- Provides the added benefit of potentially helping a user to stay alert.
- Versatile and flexible settings to allow users to customize the parameters of the device in order to work with and/or establish safety and information systems.
- Ability to communicate with other devices such as telematics systems, cell phones, etc. to notify other parties of a pending or existing emergency situation.
- CURATM software can be purchased as an application (App) when devices such as smart phones, smart watches etc. are manufactured with all the necessary hardware.
- Being relatively inexpensive creates real and measurable value propositions.
As an additional benefit the MyCadianTM Watch has many of the same features and dashboards as other wearable fitness watches.
As another major initiative the corporation has closed on the purchase of certain assets of Alertness Solutions Inc. of Menlo Park, California. The assets consist of the Z-Coach tool; a robust web based training and educational software for the Fatigue Management Consulting Industry. The Z-Coach tool will integrate with, augment and enhance our Real Time Alertness Monitoring and Emergency Systems and other new technologies in our suite of products.
The Z-Coach technology was originally designed, developed and enhanced by some of the world's most respected fatigue management scientists and experts. Mr. Kaplan stated that Ms. Leigh White, president of Alertness Solutions, will be joining Torvec as Executive Vice President of the Fatigue Management Consulting Division.
We are also working on some other exciting technologies that we hope to add to our suite of Fatigue Management products in the near future.
To aid in these incredibly important endeavors we have put together an advisory board of some of the worlds most respected scientists and experts.
They are:
Dr. Kenneth Wright Jr. of the University of Colorado at Boulder,
Dr. Richard J. Hanowski of Virginia Tech,
Dr. Jonathan A. Marcus of the University of Rochester,
Dr. Laura K. Barger of Harvard University
Dr. Melissa Mallis- Scientist, expert and researcher in Fatigue Risk Management Systems.
Their bios can be seen on Torvec's website.
We feel we now have both an internal and external team that will allow us to reach our goals.
Our MyCadianTM Watch and CURATM Software programming is on schedule. We should have prototypes in the last quarter of 2015. We will be starting our clinical analyses in October which also will be completed in the last quarter.
Using the abilities of our systems some of our potential markets are:
- Truck drivers
- Retail-General public drivers
- Airline Pilots
- Train Engineers
- School and over the road bus drivers
- Corporations -- to improve productivity, lower absenteeism, have less mistakes and accidents
- Hospital Personnel
- Security guards
- Municipalities -- for Police, Fireman, DPW Workers, etc.
- Military/Government -- such as Air Traffic Controllers, Guards, etc.
- Security systems for store clerks, children, or emergency notifications
- Campers, Hunters and Hikers
- Surveillance Agents
- Students
- People in meetings
- People with health problems
- People monitoring critical processes i.e. nuclear facilities, infrastructure, etc.
Hydraulic Pump
We are presently making adjustments to our new valve technology. Each change has shown improvement. We are focusing on performing at the maximum required operating conditions for the pump. We are confident that our targeted performance metrics can be achieved. Our goal is to create the most efficient pump on the market in a smaller, lighter and more economical package.
We have concepts for the variable displacement pump ready but at this time are focusing our efforts on the valve, which will be used in both pumps. We plan on testing portions of the variable displacement design with our current hardware. This will save us time and effort in the development of the variable displacement design.
We are making progress and are confident we will meet our goals. We are using advanced engineering tools and reference materials to assist us in our development. While developing new technologies, issues come up that are difficult to predict and unfortunately can affect our timelines. We are currently 30-60 days behind schedule. We are working hard to get the best product to Milwaukee School of Engineering for third party testing as quickly as possible.
Lastly we will be redesigning our website which should also be completed in the last quarter of 2015.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release may contain forward looking statements regarding Torvec's future economic performance and prospects that are subject to risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ from those described in such statements. Such risks and uncertainties include those described from time to time in Torvec's SEC reports, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K.
About Torvec, Inc.
Torvec, Inc. develops and markets advanced technologies in the areas of power and safety. The Company currently is focusing its commercialization strategies on the following technologies: (i) a wearable device, named the MyCadian™ Watch, which measures degradation of alertness, and (ii) the Torvec Hydraulic Pump. The MyCadianTM Watch consists of hardware and software that measures multiple metrics in order to establish that a person's ability to perform a task or job appears to be degrading. The Torvec Hydraulic Pump is an innovative hydraulic design, whose goal is to deliver better efficiencies in a package that is smaller and lighter than existing technologies. For additional information, please visit www.torvec.com.