iRhythm Technologies said it closed a $16 million Series D round for its Zio wearable heart monitor, saying it plans to use the proceeds to further its commercial footprint and research & development efforts.
Led by Norwest Venture Partners, which added partner Casper de Clercq to iRhythm’s board, the latest financing including contributions from existing backers New Leaf Ventures, Synergy Life Science Partners and Kaiser Permanente Ventures.
St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) led a $10 million round for iRhythm back in 2010 and kicked in again on a $15 million round a year later.
"We are pleased to have NVP as our lead investor in this important growth phase of the company," president & CEO Kevin King said in a statement. "Since the introduction of the Zio System in early 2011, we have reported on over 20 million hours of patient data. Recent peer review data has demonstrated that the Zio Patch System is helping physicians to make more informed patient treatment decisions over the gold standard method of Holter monitoring. NVP’s interest in partnering with companies focused on products that address an unmet clinical need aligns with iRhythm’s own mission."
The FDA cleared the Zio patch and accompanying analysis software for 2 weeks of continuous wear. The system is designed to log data on patients’ heart rhythm, then process and analyze the data to kick out a report to "streamline the diagnostic process by highlighting key findings," according to a press release.
"By combining advances in electronics and dramatically simplified ergonomics, iRhythm has developed an FDA-cleared medical device which intuitively improves patient compliance and diagnostic utility," de Clercq said in prepared remarks. "iRhythm provides a comprehensive diagnostics service with computer data analytics to augment what has historically been a labor intensive interpretation process. The recent study shows that the Zio patch system offers a significant improvement in diagnostic accuracy over traditional ‘gold-standard’ Holter monitoring. Hospitals and payers have taken note of this solution because of the efficiency and efficacy for patients and physicians, which have the potential to reduce overall cost of care."
