Cardiac monitor developer Cheetah Medical Ltd. has raised $14.5 million from Ascension Health, a Catholic health ministry, and MVM Life Science Partners LLC of the US, and Germany's Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH, the investment arm of Robert Bosch GmbH. The company has raised $54 million from these investors to date.
Cheetah Medical's NICOM system is a non-invasive cardiac output monitor of patients in intensive care; monitoring which until now could only be carried out invasively. The company reportedly has $10 million in sales. It has left open the possibility of recruiting another investor, and believes that, after the current financing round is closed, it will reach the cash flow break-even point. This is usually the point at which a medical devices company seeks an exit.
Cheetah Medical's NICOM system, which has US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and EU CE Mark approval, has already been installed at 100 hospitals in the US, Europe, and Asia. The system makes it possible to optimize the delivery of liquids to patients - inadequate liquids can slow the heart rate too much, and too many liquids can cause saturation.
The system can also be used to optimize the activity of pacemakers, and to distinguish between cardiac conditions which can appear similar, such as cardiac arrest and internal bleeding. The company is readying the launch of the next generation NICOM system, and is conducting clinical trials to expand its use.
Since Cheetah Medical's previous financing round in 2010, in which it raised $20 million, its CEO Yoav Avidor, who brought the company to the sales stage, left and was succeeded by an American, Chris Hutchison. The company is based in Tel Aviv, and has offices in Vancouver, Washington State, and Maidenhead in the UK.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 7, 2013
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