San Francisco-based startup Element Science Inc. has raised a massive financing in support of the first product that is part of its next-generation digital wearable platform. The $145.6 million series C financing is slated to support the company through clinical trial completion and commercial launch of its Jewel Patch Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillator.
Over the last few years, Wall Street has fervently embraced the largest diabetes technology companies, particularly those behind continuous glucose monitors, insulin pumps, and the automated closed loop systems that incorporate both to work together.
Artificial intelligence still has a lot to prove when it comes to its relevance in improving health care. But one bright spot was a deal last July between Dublin-based Medtronic plc and San Francisco-based startup Viz.ai Inc. to use the latter’s AI system that’s designed to spot a large vessel occlusion automatically in CT angiogram images.
Making routine diagnostic blood tests less invasive, easier, cheaper and more accessible is a worthy goal. But achieving it has eluded many, including former unicorn startup Theranos that boasted it had achieved precisely that but then was later exposed as a fraud. Established med-tech player Becton, Dickinson and Co. (BD) and Babson Diagnostics Inc. have established a long-term strategic partnership to bring laboratory quality, small-volume blood collection into the retail pharmacy setting.
Acutus Medical Inc. is working to build itself into a major competitor in cardiac electrophysiology. The latest step to do so is an FDA clearance for its second-generation cardiac mapping software known as Supermap. This works in conjunction with its next-gen Acqmap 3D Imaging and Mapping System. The Carlsbad, Calif.-based startup, which was founded in 2011, is now marketing these in both the U.S. and Europe, where Supermap received a CE mark in October 2019.
San Francisco-based startup Cloudcath has raised a $12 million series A round to support commercialization of its first product that enables remote, real-time monitoring for at-home peritoneal dialysis patients. The expectation is that the notifications it offers to health care providers will enable earlier intervention to avoid complications, including infection. The Cloudcath system is pending U.S. FDA clearance.
The FDA has granted over-the-counter (OTC) clearance to the first noninvasive wearable to treat stress urinary incontinence. The device, known as Innovo, uses electrical stimulation to strengthen pelvic floor muscles and is integrated into fitted shorts. It was already available by physician prescription in the U.S. since an FDA clearance in early 2019.
The FDA has awarded a breakthrough device designation to a polymer film implant to create an artificial endothelial layer in the eye. Known as Endoart, it is designed to replace a non-functioning endothelium, which is the single layer of cells on the inner surface of the cornea. Without it, excess fluid flows into the cornea and can result in severe vision loss.
The market for multinational medical device companies in China has largely been driven by use only in major public hospitals for patients who pay mostly or entirely out-of-pocket. But that’s continuing to change in ways that could offer a window onto medical device trends in the region over the coming decades.
Early detection of neurodegenerative disease even before symptoms emerge is the ideal when it comes to trying to treat or prevent progression. But that has remained difficult, as brain tissue that isn’t available until after death is typically the most definitive. Now, researchers have used an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm to identify genetic expression data over time and correlate them in blood and postmortem brain tissue samples from subjects with either Alzheimer’s or Huntington’s disease.
