Seattle-based Mirador Biomedical said today it has filed for FDA clearance to start selling a device that helps medical professionals tell the difference between a vein or an artery as a catheter gets inserted. More than 6 million central venous procedures are done each year in the U.S., and thousands of people suffer severe injuries or death when a catheter is improperly inserted, the company says. The Mirador technology is designed to provide a quantitative pressure measurement to avoid that problem. The company, which raised $1.1 million in March from WRF Capital, Summit Capital, and angel investors, is led by CEO Karl Schmidt, who previously ran global marketing at Northstar Neuroscience.
Author: Luke Timmerman
Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. He has served as national biotechnology editor for Xconomy and national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.
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