[Corrected 6/17/16, 12:54 p.m. See below] Animated Dynamics has closed $1.7 million in venture funding for a medical imaging technology developed to help doctors get a better view of the cancers that they’re treating.
Caravel Ventures led the Series A round, which included investments from Elevate Ventures, the Purdue Research Foundation, and Vestian. Indianapolis-based Animated Dynamics says the funding will help speed up efforts to bring its imaging technology to the market.
Animated Dynamic says its technology, called Motility Contrast Tomography, works in a manner similar to how Doppler weather radar works. Just as Doppler radar measures the reflection of radio waves from clouds, the Animated Dynamic technology measures the reflection of light waves in living tissue. The result, the company says, is a 3D image that gives physicians a view of what’s happening inside living tissue. The technology was developed by David Nolte, a physics professor at Purdue University who co-founded Animated Dynamics and serves as its chief scientific officer.
The technology could have precision medicine applications. With a better view of the cancer, Animated Dynamics says, its technology could be used to evaluate how a patient’s tumor responds to a particular chemotherapy. That means a doctor would have more information about which drug to prescribe to treat the patient’s cancer. Animated Dynamics says that early pilot studies have shown that the technology offers “high predictive value” in evaluating the response and non-response of cancer drugs, yielding results within 24 hours.
“Only 40 percent of cancer patients benefit from their chemotherapy, yet 100 percent suffer its horrible side effects,” CEO Ted Schenberg said in a prepared statement. “If a technology like ours can improve the odds of selecting the right drug for a specific patient’s cancer, that could benefit millions of people.” [Spelling of Schenberg’s name corrected.]
Animated Dynamics aims to make a test that uses the company’s technology available to oncologists next year.
