Investors are backing neurostimulation device company Stimdia Medical Inc. with $16 million, in the first tranche of a series B offering expected to total $30 million. The Minneapolis-based company is developing a device that stimulates the phrenic nerves in a patient’s neck to exercise the diaphragm during mechanical ventilation and minimize ventilation-induced diaphragmatic dysfunction (VIDD).
With hospitalizations rapidly rising as the COVID-19 pandemic washes across the world in a winter wave, researchers are racing to develop treatments that protect the increasing number of ventilated patients. One option focuses on protecting muscles critical to breathing.