It’s been a huge week for Chicago healthtech.
Endotronix, a Woodridge-based healthtech company, announced on Thursday that it has raised a $32 million Series C round. The round comes just a day after the announcements of Caremerge’s $14 million round and Valence Health’s acquisition for $145 million.
Founded in 2007 by a cardiothoracic surgeon and a mechanical engineer, Endotronix is the maker of a wireless-enabled heart implant for patients suffering from advanced heart failure. The company is also developing a cloud-based outpatient management system that helps care providers monitor patients’ pulmonary artery pressure in an effort to reduce hospitalizations for heart failure.
"The Series C financing will fund our clinical program including commercialization of our cloud-based outpatient management system and the safety and feasibility study for our implantable wireless pulmonary artery sensor," said co-founder and CEO Harry Rowland in a statement.
According to stats provided by the company, heart failure is the leading cause of hospitalization for people over 65 in the United States, with nearly six million Americans affected and treatment costs estimated to exceed $31 billion annually. A 2011 clinical trial found that real-time monitoring of heart pressure can reduce hospitalizations by up to 37 percent.
"Patient-friendly, wireless solutions that provide early detection and link the physician and patient in continuous communication have enormous potential for the management of chronic heart failure," said Leslie Saxon, MD, Professor of Medicine and Executive Director for the Center for Body Computing, University of Southern California in a statement. "The Endotronix solution optimizes the inefficient management and communication pathways that currently plague both patients and physicians."
Investors in Endotronix’s most recent round include BioVentures Investors, SV Life Sciences (SVLS), Lumira Capital, Aperture Venture Partners and OSF Ventures. They were joined by a number of existing investors and an unnamed “corporate strategic investor.”
BioVentures, SVLS, Lumira and Luxemburg Capital picked up board seats as part of the agreement.
"We are excited to invest in Endotronix and believe it is well positioned to disrupt costly heart failure treatment patterns and add significant value to the market," said Paul LaViolette, managing partner at SVLS and incoming chairman of the Endotronix board, in a statement. "The company's end-to-end patient management solution will integrate critical data on one platform to best address the clinical problem of managing patients with advanced heart failure."
Images via Endotronix.
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