The digital therapeutics market has seen an explosion of innovative products and interested investors. Regulators, too, have acknowledged their potential to improve outcomes in patients with chronic or debilitating conditions – often at lower cost and with less side effects than traditional drug therapies. To that end, the FDA has granted breakthrough device designation to Swing Therapeutics Inc. for its prescription digital therapeutic for the management of fibromyalgia.
Pulse Medical Imaging Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. has raised more than $100 million in a series C funding round to accelerate the R&D, clinical trials and commercialization of its products. “Pulse plans to use the funds to accelerate the commercialization of its fractional flow reserve (FFR) estimating systems,” Xiaojie Lin, marketing director of Pulse, told BioWorld. FFR is a method to measure blood pressure and flow within a coronary artery to check on the possibility that the stenosis impedes oxygen delivery to the heart muscle.
While the 441 med-tech financings completed so far this year are nearly as much as this point last year (446), the amount of money raised, at $33.43 billion, is 17% below the amount raised through early August of 2020 ($40.14 billion). Just two months ago, the volume of financings was 10% higher than last year, indicating a recent slowdown in activity. Nevertheless, 2021 appears to be on track to beat the $40.7 billion raised in 2019, and it is already ahead of the full year amounts for 2017 and 2018.
PARIS – Biospectal SA has just closed a $4.3 million seed round to scale its Optibp smartphone blood pressure monitoring application and data platform technology worldwide.
TORONTO – A “silent epidemic” all but “ignored” by medical technology developers. That’s how Carlo Perez, founder and CEO of Swift Medical Inc., described the hesitancy of the industry to directly tackle chronic wound care through development of more advanced medical imaging and diagnostic systems. Undaunted, U.S. and Canadian investors have raised $35 million in series B funding to advance development and uptake of Swift Medical’s own AI-powered, digital wound care platform.
Microport Scientific Corp.’s cardiac rhythm disorders subsidiary, Microport Cardiac Rhythm Management Ltd. (Microport CRM), has confirmed agreements for a series C financing that would net it total investment proceeds of $150 million. Hillhouse Capital Group and Microport will co-lead the series C investment with investments of $20 million and $47 million, respectively.
LONDON – Birmingham University spinout 4D Biomaterials Ltd. has raised initial funding of £1.6 million (US$2.2 million) to commercialize a new shape-changing biopolymer for use in soft tissue repair.
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