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Home » Daktari Diagnostics wraps $2.8 million VC round

Daktari Diagnostics wraps $2.8 million VC round

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The MassDevice Weekly Roundup brings you the latest medical device news and information.

The MassDevice Checkup

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Our weekly checkup takes the temperature of the public medical device companies in the three largest markets in the U.S.: Massachusetts, Minnesota and California. In addition to the indices for each state, which track the overall movement of the sector, we compare Monday morning’s opening share prices with their value when the markets close Friday afternoon and calculate the biggest gainers and losers. Read More more arrow

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News

Integra LifeSciences buys Innovative Spinal Technologies assets for $9 million
New Jersey-based holding company buys the assets of the defunct spinal implant maker, plans to launch IST’s Paramount minimally invasive lumbar repair device next year. Read More more arrow

NxStage unit inks another supply deal
Medisystems Corp. to provide blood tubing sets and safety needles to Reliant Renal Care’s dialysis clinics. Read More more arrow

Caliper Life Sciences hits a triple
The Hopkinton, Mass.-based lab equipment maker launches its IVIS Lumina XR, combining fluorescence, bioluminescence and X-ray imaging in a single device. Read More more arrow

McClellan Automation Millipore plans more work with Gen-Probe spinoff
Earlier collaborations produced quick test for Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria; another testing device slated for 2010 launch. Read More more arrow

FDA hits Medtronic sutureless catheter with Class I recall
Design flaw caused leakage, other problems in 10 patients when implant was used with Medtronic IsoMed infusion pumps. Read More more arrow

Abbott’s Xience V gets regulatory nod from China
The Chicago-based devices giant plant to bring its latest drug-eluting stent to market in China during the fourth quarter. Read More more arrow

Boston Scientific inks urological diagnostics deal
The Natick, Mass.-based devices giant will market Bladder Health Networks’ urinary incontinence diagnostic tool. Read More more arrow

DePuy Mitek loses bid to blame patent infringement on surgeons
A federal judge slapped down the Raynham, Mass.-based orthopedic device maker’s claim that it couldn’t be responsible for the infringement because it’s the surgeons who use the device. Read More more arrow

Indiana jury hands Guidant a win in lawsuit over toddler’s death
An Indiana jury found that the Boston Scientific subsidiary isn’t liable in the death of a 14-month-old girl whose pacemaker failed. Read More more arrow

Former Caliper CFO jumps to NeuroMetrix
Thomas Higgins to oversee the coffers at the Waltham, Mass.-based nerve test equipment maker. Read More more arrow

Dell jumps into the EMR pool
The computer maker wants a share of the $19 billion federal effort to digitize medical records. Read More more arrow

Obama pitches Congress on healthcare reform
President Barack Obama delivered a few more details on his ideas for reform in an address to Congress last night, meeting stiff partisan opposition and one Congressman who called him a liar. Read More more arrow

Analogic founder donates $40 million to Tufts
Bernard Gordon’s gift to his alma mater’s engineering school is only his latest donation, but it’s his biggest. Read More more arrow

Spire to sell catheter business to Bard Access Systems for $15 million
The Bedford, Mass.-based company, planning to concentrate on solar energy, exits the medical device business. Read More more arrow

MassMEDIC Investors Conference Report: Fewer FDA medical device inspectors handle more complaints
The number of adverse event reports at the Food & Drug Administration spiked even as the number of field investigators declined. Read More more arrow

Syneron to snap up Candela for $65 million
Wayland, Mass.-based Candela will become a subsidiary of its Israeli peer, maintaining its local operations. Read More more arrow

NeuroMetrix raises nearly $19 million in stock sale
Waltham, Mass.-based nerve test equipment manufacturer inks private placement deals for 9 million shares. Read More more arrow

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Jobs

The MassDevice Career Connector: Open jobs in the medical device industry
Our jobs board has hundreds of open positions at medical device makers around the country. Read More more arrow

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Features

MassDevice Q&A: Grant McGimpsey
The director of Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Bioengineering Institute on the Neuroprosthetics 2009 symposium set for Sept. 16. Read More more arrow

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Blogs

MassDevice blog: Baucus bill would see medical device makers pony up $4 billion a year
A “framework” version of a healthcare reform bill by Sen. Max Baucus would see medical device manufacturers pay $4 billion a year, starting in 2010, allocated by market share. Read More more arrow

Weekly Wireless Roundup: CardioNet enhances cardiac monitoring
Remote cardiac monitoring provider gives physicians more in-depth data; Henry Ford Health’s device-free remote monitoring pilot; Halo Monitoring synchs to Microsoft’s HealthVault; and the real top BlackBerry medical apps. Read More more arrow

Dollars & Spence: Wireless connectivity and medical devices
Integrating wireless technology into medical devices presents the industry with both a carrot and a stick: Stimulus cash (carrot) versus increasing demand for connective devices from hospitals (stick). Read More more arrow

MedGadget’s MedTech Monday: No-pressure foot scanner for diabetics
MeDaVinci’s no-pressure foot scanner monitors for infection and inflammation; individualized artificial voice for laryngectomy patients; St. Jude’s Brio deep brain stimulator wins EU OK for Parkinson’s; and a home sleep monitoring system. Read More more arrow

Reimbursement Row: A $4 billion price tag for the device industry?
The medical device sector is grappling with a bout of sticker shock over a proposed $4 billion “reform contribution” to the healthcare reform effort in Washington. Read More more arrow

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Upcoming Events

September 10-11th, Boston — Inaugural Medical Device Connectivity Conference

September 16th, Waltham, Mass. — Medical Development Group networking event: “Supernetworking: Start-up Funding in Hard Times”

October 2nd, Boston — MassMEDIC’s Annual Investors Conference

“New England is a hotbed of cutting-edge research in the medtech industry. MassMEDIC is proud to offer an opportunity for regional promising early stage companies to showcase their technologies before an audience of potential investors and strategic partners. The Investors Conference has been a seminal event for medtech start-ups, more than 250 companies have participated in the Conference since 1999 — many making their debut before investors.

“While the primary focus of the Investors Conference is on finance and investment, the annual program has also become an outstanding networking event, drawing more than 450 attendees representing every facet of medtech’s finance, manufacturing, development and service supply sectors.”

For more information visit MassMEDIC’s website.

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Daktari Diagnostics wraps $2.8 million VC round

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People of a certain age may still recall the old television series “Daktari,” featuring, among other fictional jungle denizens, a cross-eyed lion named Clarence. A tougher chore might be remembering examples of someone investing in global health initiatives or in Africa.

But old attitudes are changing and private investors outside the oil or mineral businesses are starting to recognize the possibilities in Africa and putting up serious money to nudge that potential along.

One example is Daktari Diagnostics Inc., an Arlington, Mass.-based startup working to develop a quick and easy-to-use device to test for HIV/AIDS. The company announced Friday it has completed a $2.8 million funding round, attracting investors not only from a wide swath of wealthy individuals in the region, but significant corporate and venture capital support as well.

Daktari — Swahili for “doctor” — launched in October 2008 by Dr. William Rodriguez and Dr. Mehmet Toner, a pair of physicians with enviable pedigrees now affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital. The two have been working on the handheld device for about two years and will use the new money to prepare a prototype for clinical trials, expected to begin next year.

The device is designed to count CD4 cells in the bloodstream and determine the body’s ability to fight infection. CD4 counts also are one of the primary methods to assess the progress of HIV/AIDS. Current testing involves drawing blood from the patient and sending the sample to a lab — a time-consuming and costly process in many parts of Africa and other developing countries where AIDS is prevalent.

Instead, the Daktari device provides on-the-spot CD4 counts with a finger stick in about six minutes. It works by directing blood into an assay chamber where antibodies grab onto CD4 cells while letting red blood and white blood cells pass. The process — known as microfluidic cell chromatography — overcomes the need for complex preparation techniques, making the device ideal for caregivers working outside traditional medical facilities.

“One of its best attributes is its ease of use,” said Aaron Sandoski, managing director at Norwich Ventures, a Waltham, Mass.-based venture firm investing exclusively in early-stage life science companies. “You really only need a sixth-grade education to make it work.”

Sandoski told MassDevice that Norwich invested in the current round; he’s now a member on the Daktari board of directors. Other investors include nearly three dozen individuals affiliated with Mass Medical Angels and the Partners Innovation Fund, formed two years ago to support technology developed by researchers at facilities managed by the Partners Health System.

Another important innovation of the Daktari device is its use of electrochemical sensing, counting CD4 cells as they make contact with an electrical surface. That adds to the speed of the device and removes the lenses, cameras, filters or complex optics now used in blood diagnostics.

“Electronics are just so much cheaper than any of the alternatives right now,” said Rodriquez, who previously led Harvard’s Partners AIDS Research Center and was chief medical officer of the William J. Clinton Foundation for several years. “That’s what I see as our primary competitive advantage.”

Added Toner, director of the BioMicroElectroMechanical Systems Center at Mass General, “Daktari’s solution to CD4 counting for global health applications is simple, robust and elegant. This is microfluidics at its best.”

According to Roger Kitterman at the Partners Innovation Fund, a handful of other companies — including Waltham-based Inverness Medical Innnovations and LabNow Inc., a privately held company in Austin, Texas — also are working on devices to count CD4 cells outside lab settings. But Daktari, he believes, has an advantage by being closer to clinical trials and in the likely lower costs for end-users of the device.

Sandoski and Kitterman are also banking on Rodriquez to carry Daktari to commercial success. Rodriquez, they said, has boots-on-the-ground knowledge of fighting HIV/AIDS, especially in Africa, where private investment seldom has kept pace with its vast medical and sociological needs.

“Over the past five years or so, there’s been a real change in attitudes toward Africa and the rest of the developing world,” Kitterman said. “You’ve had organizations like the Clinton and [the Bill and Melinda] Gates Foundations working in many of those countries and it’s had a real impact in terms of transparency and effectiveness.

“Investors now can look there and see a place with market opportunities and possible solutions,” he continued. “They’ve made the African market investible.”

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  • How LimFlow’s foot-saving system prevents amputations in patients with no other options
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