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Israeli medical device company CritiSense, which has developed
a new device for monitoring oxygen levels at the tissue level
for patients undergoing surgery or in intensive care units,
has closed a financing round, in which it raised $1.2 million.
The round was led by US venture capital firm Bridge Investment
Fund LP of Cleveland, Ohio. Also participating were Clarion
Group CEO Morton Cohen and the company’s existing shareholders,
Pontifax Ltd., and Docor International BV. One of CritiSense’s
other shareholders is Zeev Bronfeld, one of the founders and
owners of Biomedix Incubator Ltd. (TASE:BMDX.M) and Biocell
(TASE: BCEL).
CritiSense was founded in 2004 on the basis of the assets of
an earlier company named Vital Medical. The company’s
device, the Critiview, was developed by the company’s
co-founder and chief scientist, Professor Avraham Mayevsky,
formerly head of the department of Department of Life Sciences
and Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Bar Ilan University,
where he established a center for tissue physiology. It provides
continuous, real-time multi-parametric physiological data at
the tissue and cellular level, by monitoring the mitochondrial
function and the microcirculatory blood flow and oxygen saturation,
by way of tissue titration therapy with an optical sensor.
The company is set to begin clinical trials in 2007, although
it previously told “Globes” that trials would begin
in 2006, with a view to securing US Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) approval by the end of the year. It is not, however, the
first medical device company whose FDA approval process takes
longer than expected and it probably won’t be the last
one.
CritiSense’s new shareholder is no less interesting than
the company itself. Bridge Investment was founded in Cleveland,
and its model is to invest primarily in early stage Israeli
medical device companies that are backed by venture capital,
and are looking to establish a presence in Northeast Ohio.
Bridge Investment currently has $6 million for investment, but
it hopes to raise a further $15 million in the near future.
It is managed in Ohio by former AOL business development manager
Michael Goldberg, and in Israel by former Rad-Bio Med founder,
and Bank Leumi chief technology investment officer Avshalom
Horan, and Tene Investments partner Dr. Ariel Halperin. The
fund’s investors include Forest City Enterprises, Key
Bank, National City Bank, and the Mt. Sinai, Myers and Maltz
Family Foundations.
Avshalom Horan said, ”CritiSense didn’t approach
us because of our money. Rather, it was interested in taking
advantage of Bridge’s relationships with the Cleveland
Clinic, University Hospitals of Cleveland and BioEnterprise
Corp, a non-profit organization that assists Northern Ohio healthcare
companies.”
Published by Globes [online],
Israel business news - www.globes.co.il
- on June 21, 2006
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983
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