Diego Delia, an anesthesiologist, was one of many people worldwide struggling with sleep issues. But he had a unique advantage: his medical expertise. After being diagnosed with mild sleep apnea and experiencing frightening episodes of breathlessness at night, Delia set out to tackle this problem with an innovative approach. He combined two well-established techniques—a pulse oximeter and the human instinctive response to a stimulus—to create something new. Frustrated by the lack of effective solutions on the market, he developed the first prototype of SOMNI.

Early in the development, the tragic news of sudden infant death highlighted the need for pediatric applications. Recognizing that infants cannot respond to sleep issues independently, Delia focused on adapting SOMNI for this use. His work received multiple prestigious recognitions from the international medical community, including support from Dr. Michael Harrison, a pediatric surgeon at UCSF known as the “father of fetal surgery,” and the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC. During an awards event for pediatric innovation in Silicon Valley, an FDA medical representative advised Delia to gather data on adults to help pave the way for pediatric use. Consequently, SOMNI resumed its focus on adults with sleep-related breathing disorders.