Stimdia Medical announced recently that it completed the initial closing of a $16 million tranche of its Series B financing round.
Solas Bioventures led the financing round, while new strategic partners and existing investors Draper Triangle Ventures also contributed funding.
Minneapolis-based Stimdia designed its pdSTIM system to offer a tool for addressing high-risk patients, including those with COVID-19, by providing a minimally invasive neurostimulation solution to awaken and recondition the diaphragm. The platform facilitates the weaning of patients suffering from ventilator-induced diaphragmatic dysfunction (VIDD) who are on mechanical ventilation for 96 hours or more and who have failed at least two weaning attempts.
“This funding provides us with the resources needed to support the initiation and completion of our planned FDA pivotal study that will be focused on demonstrating how our technology can strengthen the diaphragm, thereby enabling earlier liberation of patients from mechanical ventilation,” Stimdia CEO Tim Miller said in a news release. “We appreciate the confidence our funding partners have in our company and its technology, and we look forward to expanding the evidence supporting the clinical and economic value of our technology.”
Stimdia developed its technology through an early collaboration with the University of Minnesota, which provided institutional knowledge and financing as a part of the company’s seed stage investment. It has since completed a first-in-human clinical study.
“This technology is the most intuitive therapy I have had the opportunity to be a part of,” Stimdia Medical co-founder and board chair Jim Bullock said. “By applying neurostimulation we are able to strengthen the primary muscle utilized to support independent breathing.”