Digital health & consumer devices · Senior care voice AI
Cairns Health
A voice controlled care companion, Luna, that watches over older adults at home using radar instead of cameras. The company started as a bedside sleep device, pivoted to eldercare, changed its name, changed its CEO, and picked up an acquisition along the way.
No cameras in the bedroom
Luna is a device that sits in a person's home, listens for a voice command, and otherwise watches without a lens. It uses radar to sense a body's position, movement, heart rate, breathing rate and sleep stages, then a large language model to decide when to say something: a medication reminder, a check-in question, a nudge to keep a care plan on track.
"Luna combines intelligent ambient sensing and a large language model to detect patient states and intervene when necessary," Jamey Edwards, the company's president and chief strategy officer, told Healthcare IT Today in January 2025. "The radar captures data without violating patient privacy, making it a trusted companion in caregiving."
By January 2026 the company was showing Luna at CES in Las Vegas, where the CTA Foundation named it the winner of the Eureka Park Accessibility Contest.
The problem it says it is solving
Cairns Health frames its market with a set of numbers on its own site: a projected shortfall of 900,000 caregivers by 2030, one in four older adults falling each year regardless of care setting, and more than 200,000 hospitalizations a year tied to missed medication. It also cites 70 million Americans turning 65 by 2030 and says 90 percent of older adults want to stay in their own homes as their care needs change.
The pitch to providers is continuity between visits. "Imagine that you are a caregiver, and you wake up in the morning and you get a report that says your mom is doing great," Edwards said in the same interview. "Her vitals look awesome. She ate breakfast and she is on her way to physiotherapy. As a caregiver you can breathe a big sigh of relief."
From a sleep device to a care companion
The company was founded around 2016 and 2017 under the name Totemic Labs by Neal Khosla, Kiran Joshi, Brad Eckert and Jamey Edwards, according to Crunchbase's founder listing. Y Combinator's own page for the company lists it as part of the Summer 2017 batch, "formerly Totemic." A former founder's YC bio describes building "deep learning radars in consumer electronics for the home environment and an LLM enabled cure for chronic insomnia," which matches what Totemic's first product actually was: Aura, a bedside radar device paired with cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. A PitchBook record of the company still carries that description, of a "sleep-tracking bedside device" using cognitive behavioral therapy and "daily sleep lessons," a snapshot of the company before it became Cairns Health and moved into eldercare.
Neal Khosla's own site lists his companies as "Curai and Koko," omitting Totemic or Cairns, and Crunchbase lists him only as a board member, not an operator. Kiran Joshi and Brad Eckert have since moved on: Eckert's YC bio lists his latest company as Woz, not Cairns.
A biotech turnaround executive takes the wheel
By May 2025, Cairns Health had a new chief executive: Andrew Ritter, a biotech operator who founded and ran Ritter Pharmaceuticals for nearly 17 years, took it public on Nasdaq, and later merged it with Qualigen Therapeutics. In between he led Docbot, an AI medtech company, through what a GT Biopharma announcement called a successful exit to a strategic acquirer. GT Biopharma, a Nasdaq-listed immuno-oncology company, named Ritter to its own board that same month, describing him as "currently serving as Chief Executive Officer of Cairns Health, an innovator in AI-powered remote care solutions supporting Home and Senior Care."
Under Ritter, the company moved to expand what Luna could do beyond the home. In October 2025, Cairns Health acquired Together by Renee, an AI and computer-vision app from SixD Inc. that lets a user manage medications by photographing a pill bottle. Together by Renee was built by Nick Desai and Dr. Renee Dua, the husband and wife team behind Heal, the doctor house-call company Humana acquired in 2023. The app had grown to more than 50,000 users and over 1,500 five-star App Store ratings, according to the companies' joint announcement, which put no price on the deal. "Its ability to help users manage medications by scanning a label is game-changing," Ritter said. "By bringing that technology into Luna and layering voice capabilities on top, we can now talk to users, help them stay on plan, and take a complex healthcare situation and transform it into a simple conversation."
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| FDA clearance | No 510(k) or PMA record found for Cairns Health, Totemic Labs or Luna. The company's own materials do not claim one; Luna is marketed as ambient sensing and companionship, not a diagnostic. | Not found |
| Health system partnerships | Edwards told Healthcare IT Today that Cairns Health has "partnerships with respected institutions like Indiana University Health and Mayo Clinic" for Alzheimer's care and REM sleep behavioral disorder detection programs. No press release, case study or statement from either institution was found to confirm scope or status. | Company-stated |
| Patents | PitchBook lists nine patent filings under Cairns Health, including US application 20250306198 ("Radar-based human activity recognition") and US application 20240370711 ("Radar input for large language model"), both listed as pending. | Aggregator, public filings |
| Clinical trials or peer-reviewed studies | None found tied to this company. The trial and PubMed records associated with the name "Cairns" in public databases belong to unrelated researchers and an Australian hepatitis C program, not this company. | Not found |
| Together by Renee acquisition | Confirmed by multiple independent outlets and a joint press release; financial terms undisclosed. CB Insights' company page states the deal backward, describing Cairns Health as having been "acquired by Together by Renee" in October 2025, which contradicts every primary announcement. | Differs from independent reporting |
| Total funding raised | CB Insights lists total raised as $5.32 million. PitchBook lists $35.1 million, including an unverified $30 million "Later Stage VC" round dated June 2021 with no named lead investor and no independent press coverage found. No SEC Form D exists for the company under any name it has used. | Aggregators disagree |
Read plainly: the product claims (ambient radar sensing, voice interaction, medication reminders) are demonstrated in company demos and independent trade coverage of CES 2026, and the Together by Renee acquisition is solidly confirmed. What is not demonstrated in any public record is clinical outcomes data, a completed regulatory pathway, or a reliable funding total. Two paid company databases disagree with each other by a factor of nearly seven on how much money the company has raised, and one of them has the direction of its most recent acquisition backward.
What to watch
- Whether Together by Renee's features actually ship inside Luna on the six-month integration timeline the companies announced in October 2025.
- Named senior living or home care customers beyond the Indiana University Health and Mayo Clinic partnerships Edwards described in 2025.
- Whether Cairns Health ever files a Form D or another SEC notice, which would be the first primary-source funding record for the company.
- The consumer-facing product the company said was "coming out later this month" in its October 2025 acquisition announcement.
In their words
“Luna combines intelligent ambient sensing and a large language model to detect patient states and intervene when necessary.”
Jamey Edwards, President and Chief Strategy Officer, Healthcare IT Today interview, Jan 2025 · Interview
“The radar captures data without violating patient privacy, making it a trusted companion in caregiving.”
Jamey Edwards, Healthcare IT Today interview, Jan 2025 · Interview
“Imagine that you are a caregiver, and you wake up in the morning and you get a report that says your mom is doing great.”
Jamey Edwards, Healthcare IT Today interview, Jan 2025 · Interview
“CES provides the ideal stage to introduce and define a new category of home technology, an intelligent, non-invasive support that integrates into daily life.”
Andrew Ritter, CEO, company release, Jan 6, 2026 · Company release
“Its ability to help users manage medications by scanning a label is game-changing.”
Andrew Ritter, CEO, acquisition announcement, Oct 16, 2025 · Company release
“This deal allows us to take Luna beyond the bedroom, supporting patients wherever they go 24/7.”
Andrew Ritter, CEO, acquisition announcement, Oct 16, 2025 · Company release
“Our goal with Together by Renee was to make healthcare radically easier, not just smarter.”
Nick Desai, CEO, SixD Inc., acquisition announcement, Oct 16, 2025 · Partner release
“He currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Cairns Health, an innovator in AI-powered remote care solutions supporting Home and Senior Care.”
GT Biopharma board appointment release, describing Andrew Ritter, May 15, 2025 · Independent, public company release
Related companies
Sources
- CompanyCairns Health, For Providers page
- CompanyCairns Health company profile
- InterviewRadar not Cameras Helps Cairns Health Keep an Eye on Elderly Patients
- IndependentCairns Health buys Together by Renee, ŌURA raises over $900M, Town Hall Ventures launches $400M fund
- IndependentCairns Health Acquires Together by Renee to Integrate AI Vision into Voice-Based Senior Care
- IndependentRoundup: Key Innovations from CES 2026
- Independent, public company releaseGT Biopharma Appoints New Member to its Board of Directors (Andrew Ritter)
- CompanyCairns Health Receives Multiple Honors by the Consumer Technology Association Foundation at CES 2026
- CompanyCairns Health Acquires Together by Renee to Advance AI-Driven Care for Seniors and Patients with Chronic Conditions
- AggregatorCairns Health company profile, also known as Totemic Labs
- AggregatorCairns Health company profile and patent listing
- AggregatorCairns Health 2026 Company Profile: Valuation, Funding and Investors
- AggregatorCairns Health company profile
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
