Investors Lab

The emerging market for Parkinson’s tech

An illustration of the outline of a hand made with shaky lines contrasting one made of smooth lines.

Illustration by Matthew Kam

By Susanna Camp

When my father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease decades ago, the news came too late for early intervention. Today, while we’re not any closer to curing the disease, we are getting better at early detection. Researchers are developing several noninvasive tools that monitor everything from breath to handwriting to keystrokes, to flag the disease before clinical symptoms manifest. SN‘s Meghan Rosen delivers the good news.

🫆 Decoding the biological fingerprint

Traditionally, Parkinson’s is identified only after hallmark motor symptoms — such as resting tremors, muscle rigidity or gait disturbances — have become clinically evident. Unfortunately, this often delays intervention until significant neurological damage has already occurred. To close this gap, researchers are pioneering noninvasive, high-sensitivity diagnostic tools that even nonspecialists could use to capture the “invisible” signatures of early-stage neurodegeneration. Here are a few of the diagnostic techniques in the works:

  • Magnetoelastic sensors: The slightest touch or squeeze to a special soft ball distorts its magnetic layer and generates measurable electrical signals, to precisely quantify even minute, involuntary tremors.
  • Smart pen technology: The same mechanism underpins a pen equipped with a deformable magnetic tip and iron-containing magnetic liquid. It records signals from a patient’s writing in real time, and software can detect the specific, subtle loss of fluidity that often precedes clinical motor decline.
  • Intelligent typing interfaces: The same so-called magnetoelastic effect can be harnessed for pressure-sensitive, sweatproof keyboards that log subtle metrics such as the length of time a subject presses the keys or pauses between keystrokes, capturing how fine motor control degrades during digital interactions.
  • Breath analysis: New techniques could identify molecules in a patient’s breath that correlate with certain metabolic changes associated with Parkinson’s.

Only a few Parkinson’s patients have tried these inventions, so before any real diagnoses can take place, larger studies are needed. My dad would have gladly signed up for any of them.

📈 The emerging market for neuroprotective drugs

The addressable market for Parkinson’s diagnostics is expanding rapidly, fueled by an aging global population. The worldwide count of people living with Parkinson’s is projected to reach 25 million by 2050. A successful commercial-grade diagnostic could assist practitioners in screening patients during routine checkups rather than referring them to a limited pool of specialists in Parkinson’s diagnosis. This distributed diagnostics model offers significant upside, while creating a vital data pipeline for pharmaceutical companies who want to test potential drugs on patients at the very first stages of illness.

🔬 The diagnostic pipeline

While many of these innovations are still maturing, there are plenty of companies scaling wearable biometrics and digital health diagnostics:

  • Verily, a subsidiary of Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOG), received a $14.7 million grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research in 2025 to develop a molecular dataset for researchers. That effort will complement existing datasets on Verily’s platform, including information from the company’s smart watches that capture movement. Alphabet sustains a market cap in the $3 trillion range.
  • Empatica develops medical-grade wearables, along with AI-driven monitoring for Parkinson’s and other research. Their platform includes devices, apps and a dashboard for researchers to gather data on individuals or study participants. The company has raised over $35 million to date.
  • Neursantys is a preseed startup focused on age-related balance decline. They’re piloting wearable devices that track, diagnose and treat balance disruptions caused by aging, injuries or disease. They graduated from the 2025 cohort of the AARP AgeTech accelerator program, and are actively working on patent development, fundraising and go-to-market strategy.

We’ve spent decades looking for the dreaded tremor; now, we’re finally starting to listen to what our bodies have been telling us all along.

Disclaimer: The Science News Investors Lab newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Society for Science and Science News Media Group assumes no liability for any financial decisions or losses resulting from the use of the content in this newsletter. Society for Science and Science News Media Group do not receive payments from, and do not have any ownership or investment interest in, the companies mentioned in this newsletter. Please consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.