Newton firm vows improved sleep-disorder treatments

Sleep HealthCenters^®  LLC hopes it can make a lucrative business out of snoozing.

The privately owned start-up company plans soon to open two treatment clinics for people with sleep disorders, one, in Bedford and the other in Newton.

David Barons and Stanley Goldstein, the co-founders of Sleep HcalthCenters, which is based in Newton, believe they can greatly improve the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. Now, treatment of sleep disorders is often uncoordinated because the doctors involved are scattered among different departments, Barone said.

"It's a very fragmented system and because of that patients don't end up getting treatment or end up getting the wrong kind of treatment," said Barone, a former executive with Braintree based Haemonetics Corp.., a maker of blood processing and collection equipment. "To improvethe way service is delivered you need to ingrate."

Sleep HealthCenters' Bedford clinic is slated to open later this month and will be affiliated with McLean Hospital, a nationally known psychiatric hospital in Belmont. The Newton clinic will open in June and be affiliated with Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital.

The hospitals will provide the doctors to treat patients in the clinics. Baront, said his company; which is a little more than a year old, is determined to team up with top-flight hospitals to provide services.

"All of the entities we are dealing with are blue-chip providers," Barone said.

PhilipLevendusky, vice president of network development at McLean, said the hospital expects to improve treatment through its partnership with Sleep HealthCenters.

"The intent here is to have under one roof all of the components of sleep disorder treatment,"Levendusky said.

From a business perspective, it makes sense to focus on sleep disorders because of a growing demand for treatment, Barone said. He said increasing awareness about sleep disorders is leading to increase in detection of the problems, but millions of patients are still going undiagnosed. For example, according to one estimate there are 6 million Americans who are suffering from sleep apnea, he said. People with sleep apnea stop breathing temporarily while they are sleeping.

Barone declined to say how much revenue Sleep HealthCenters hopes to generate, but he said the services provided at the clinics will be covered by health insurance plans. A press release put out by the company estimated the total "untapped" market for treating and diagnosing sleep disorders at more than $15 billion annually in the United States.

How much of that market Sleep HcalthCenters can capture remains to be seen. In addition to Massachusetts, Sleep HealthCenters hopes to open clinics in Maryland and Colorado.

Barone and Goldstein have financed their venture by raising money form private investors. He said the company has raised a "few million dollars" but declined to say exactly how much.

Barone said he became interested in sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea and insomnia, after learning about how the conditions are treated in his native Israel. He said Israel, a nation under constant pressure from adversarial neighbors, has developed some of the best programs for treating sleep disorders in the world.

He said Sleep HealthCenters wants to introduce the Israeli techniques to the United States and is being advised in its effort by the dean of an Israeli medical school. Sleep HealthCenters is also affiliated with Sleep Disorder Centers Ltd., an operator of sleep centers in Israel.

TED GRIFFITH, health care and biotechnology reporter for the Boston Business Journal, can be reached by e-mail at TGriffith@amcity.com