Swiss spinal surgery company Neo Medical SA has closed a $20.6 million financing round led by Swisscom Ventures. The funds will be used for U.S. commercialization of the company’s Advise augmented reality (AR) platform for spinal surgery. The platform is due to launch this year and will complement Neo Medical’s existing implant and instrument solutions. “The funds will be used for recruitment of sales direct sales force, training and education activities in the U.S. as well as U.S. scientific and clinical activities,” Neo Medical CEO Vincent Lefauconnier told BioWorld. “In 2022, we will see some key scientific and clinical work being published showing the massive benefit for patient of the use of our unique combination of technologies.”
LONDON – Orthox Ltd. is primed for an assault on the mountain that is knee cartilage repair after raising $12.5 million in a series A funding round. After more than a decade of translational and preclinical research, these funds will allow the company to start a trial of Fibrofix, a tissue regeneration product derived from silk, in the middle of this year. An initial cohort of six patients in the U.K. will be treated for sports injury-related cartilage damage, with six months follow up to demonstrate safety. Assuming positive results, that will be followed by treating a further 75 patients in the U.K., Hungary and elsewhere in mainland Europe.
LONDON – Three patients with complete spinal cord injury are able to walk independently after having specialized electrodes implanted below their lesions. The details were published in Nature Medicine on Feb. 7. This is a significant new milestone for the researchers at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, who in 2018 delivered proof that electrical stimulation can reactivate spinal neurons, in that case in three patients with partial spinal cord injury. “Here for the first time, we have developed purpose-made technology in order to precisely stimulate the spinal cord to restore movement after paralysis,” said Gregoire Courtine, professor of spinal cord repair at EPFL.
Inspan LLC has won FDA 510(k) clearance for an interspinous fixation system that can now be used to treat lumbar spinal stenosis in non-cervical spine cases of spondylolisthesis, trauma, tumor and degenerative disc disease. According to Aditya Humad, co-founder and CFO of Kicventures Group which counts Inspan among its portfolio companies, FDA clearance represents an expansion in the use of Inspan’s interspinous system into the “highly competitive space” of interventional pain management.
Exoskeleton company Wandercraft SAS has landed $45 million in a series C round led by U.S. fund Quadrant Management. The company’s first commercial exoskeleton, Atalante, received CE marking in 2019 and has sold for around $176,000 a piece to European rehabilitation hospitals offering gait re-learning treatment.
With the agreement to purchase Physimax Technologies Ltd. in its rearview mirror, Dariohealth Corp. passes another milestone with its third tuck-in deal in a year. Physimax, a provider of computer vision technology for musculoskeletal (MSK) screening and predictive risk assessment, joins Psyinnovations Inc. (dba Wayforward) and Upright Technologies Ltd. as tuck-ins for the rapidly growing digital health company. The latest deal is by far the smallest. The terms call for the issuance of 256,660 shares of Dariohealth’s common stock, valued at Wednesday’s closing price of $9.65 per share at just under $2.5 million, plus a cash payment of $500,000.
A homegrown company in Pakistan has developed a multi-grip bionic arm that aims to mimic the movement of real limbs while costing a fraction of what prosthetic arms normally cost. Anas Niaz and Ovais Qurshi founded Karachi-based Bioniks Pte. Ltd. in 2018 to developed efficient and low-cost robotic prosthetic limbs.
PARIS – A team of researchers from the Université Grenoble Alpes, France, has been working on X-ray phase-contrast imaging (PCI) for investigating osteoarthritis. The team at the Inserm Synchrotron Radiation for Biomedicine (Strobe) laboratory in Grenoble, France has spent the last five years working with Grenoble-based firm Novitom SAS on this new imaging modality for osteoarticular conditions.
Bioventus Inc. has received FDA 510(k) clearance for a device that enables surgeons to remove bone in hard-to-work spaces during minimally invasive surgery. It acquired the company that developed the tool, Great Neck, N.Y.-based Misonix Inc., in October.
Movendo Technology srl and Maragal Medical PC have collaborated to provide free community screening for the risk of falls for Massachusetts Medicare patients using Movendo’s Hunova robotic technology. Hunova performs a progressive assessment on seated and standing patients to evaluate their flexibility, strength and balance. The system also provides personalized rehabilitative therapy recommendations.
RSS
