Fertility Focus has two products that it says address 85% of the causes of female infertility, and assist in earlier diagnosis and treatment: the OvuSense home-use ovulation detection and fertile period predictor and the FertiloScope, a trans-vaginal laparoscopic instrument that is designed to diagnose and treat the main physical causes of female infertility in one minimally invasive outpatient procedure.
Call it digital health, mobile health, connected health, or information-enabled care delivery, in health care there is a new convergence of wireless sensing technologies, tablets, personalized medicine, cloud-based computing, and novel business models, and it all goes under the rubric of health care efficiency. Going forward, the latter will be the driver of Aberdare Venture Capital’s investment strategy, and in April, the VC made an announcement that signaled its whole-hearted commitment to the space.
The current technologies for diagnosing spinal disease don’t consistently deliver what’s required of any medical diagnostic: good predictive value, high specificity, sensitivity, validity, reproducibility, and safety. This is a gap that several young, innovative companies have set out to fill.
Derived from Strategic Transactions, Elsevier Business Intelligence’s premium source for tracking life sciences deal activity, the Recent Financings Of Private Companies column provides a comprehensive monthly review of emerging life science companies that have received venture funding, including companies within the In Vitro Diagnostics, Medical Devices, and Pharmaceuticals sectors.
Neuros Medical Inc.’s Altius is an implantable device that transmits a high-frequency electrical signal to a targeted nerve in the stump of a patient experiencing chronic pain stemming from a major limb amputation. Blocking the nerve activity eliminates the pain.
TearScience Inc. isready to go into full-scale commercialization for a new device treatment for the most prevalent form of dry eye. In late February, the young company secured up to $70 million from HealthCare Royalty Partners to help make that happen.
The meniscal suture passer from Ceterix Orthopaedics Inc. is a handheld surgical instrument that due to its small size and design facilitates meniscus repair. Because it leaves the cushion of the meniscus intact, the company believes its device will help patients avoid the arthritic changes that frequently accompany meniscus removal.
Corporate VCs are increasingly becoming a stable supplier of capital to medical device companies. Corporate investors have been participating in a growing percentage of deals being done, according to Elsevier’s Strategic Transactions, and remain focused on later-stage rounds.
Pancreatic cancer is currently the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the US, and it is primarily treated with systemic drugs that have limited ability to penetrate the pancreas. RenovoRx Inc. has developed an endovascular catheter that enables targeted delivery of either diagnostic or therapeutic fluids directly to the pancreas.
Traditional ablation for treating atrial fibrillation involves disconnecting the electrical pathway that causes the abnormal rhythm, and the procedure can take anywhere from two to four hours, thus limiting the number of cases a cath lab can handle each day. The self-expanding pulmonary vein implant in development at Flux Medical NV is easy to insert inside the vein and should make the procedure much shorter, allowing a cath lab to schedule up to six to eight cases a day.
