Brendan Technologies (Carlsbad, California) doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to discussing revenue derived from its product innovations.

Ranging between $500,000 and $600,000 thus far, the revenue “hasn’t been all that great,” Brendan CFO Lowell Giffhorn told Diagnostics & Imaging Week.

But it expects that to change — with the help of a recent $600,000 secured financing bridge led by Little Bear Investments and Midtown Partners. The company says that the financing will give it a chance to complete an upgrade of its Stat-LIA monitoring system, enabling it to tap more significantly into a market that stretches into the billions of dollars.

What was once a small company that has packed a rather medium-sized punch, has the ability to become a roaring giant and big competitor in the market. That’s what the company believes.

StatLia, a real-time monitoring solution used in laboratory testing, was developed in 1997. It can be used for immunoassay testing, immunoassays being highly sensitive and specific chemical tests that are used to detect and quantify extremely minute substances in blood, body fluid and other biological samples, using an immunological reaction.

The tests measure the formation of antibody-antigen complex and detect them via an indicator reaction. High sensitivity is achieved by using an indicator system that results in amplification of the measured product. Immunoassays may be qualitative (positive or negative) or quantitative (the amount measured).

Brendan says it will use the $600,000 bridge financing for working capital and to complete an upgraded version of the Statelier software. With the upgrade the company says it will be able to provide software that will be capable of facilitating enterprise-wide lab infrastructures, enhance accuracy and speed in both immunoassay and bioassays testing, and provide data analysis graphics that increase the overall quality, efficiency and regulatory compliance required in laboratory testing.

The company projects that the upgrade, called Stat Liam Quantum, will be available sometime this fall.

Globally more than $100 billion a year is spent on Immunoassay testing, and about $1 billion of that is spent on Immunoassay software. The company’s goal is that its upgrade will garner 14% of that $1 billion within four to five years.

“Securing this bridge financing is expected to enhance Brendan’s ability to continue unabated with the execution of our business model and provide us with the necessary capital to complete, the much anticipated launch of StatLIA,” said George Dunn, CEO of the company.

This most recent investment in Brendan comes at a time when investitures in healthcare and med-tech companies are at an all-time high.

A report just released by Dow Jones News Service, states that venture capitalists pumped a record $1 billion into U.S. medical device companies in 1Q0707, a 58% increase over the investment in the 2Q06.

In the medical device realm investor confidence is especially strong — thus challenging drug therapies. About 75 device makers raised capital last quarter, the most on record, according to the report.

Investments in the Midwest also climbed to an all-time high, possibly reaching the $1 billion mark by year-end, according to a report just released by BioEnterprise (Cleveland).