TORONTO – Novel. Unique. Revolutionary. Terms too often used to indiscriminately describe medical devices that have yet to prove their stuff. Not so at France’s Ministry of Health which takes care to deem winning devices under its Forfait Innovation (FI) program “truly innovative, not simply incremental developments.” Last week the FI awarded Vancouver, British Columbia’s Evasc Neurovascular Inc. €2.76 million (US$3.37 million) to test its CE-marked Eclips for treating intracranial bifurcation aneurysms during a 119-patient trial at 20 French sites in 2021.

Corvista Health Inc. has raised $65 million in a series C equity financing led by Ambix Life Science Fund I LP. The new funds are earmarked for ongoing research, product development and commercialization of the company’s noninvasive, point-of-care (POC) solution for rapid detection of heart disease. Joining Ambix in the round were Medventure Partners and several new and existing investors. With this latest infusion, Corvista has raised a total of nearly $100 million.

TORONTO – Front Line Medical Technologies Inc. reported Health Canada approval for a device deemed the smallest for use in emergency situations when patients require hemodynamic support to maintain blood flow to the brain and heart. According to biomedical engineer, co-founder and Front Line CEO Asha Parekh, the Cobra-OS is the world’s smallest REBOA (Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta) device.

The FDA has granted de novo authorization to Fifth Eye Inc. for its Analytic for Hemodynamic Instability (AHI), a machine learning (ML)-based, real-time indicator of patient deterioration. Commercialization of the software device, which continuously monitors patients with an electrocardiogram (ECG) for signs of deterioration, got underway on March 1.

Tenaya Therapeutics Inc. raised $106 million in a series C round to continue its build-out as a fully integrated gene therapy and regenerative medicine specialist focused on cardiovascular disease.