Bardy Diagnostics, a Seattle-based business developing a cardiac monitor and arrhythmia detection device, announced this week it has raised $35.5 million from investors to hire additional salespeople and fund continued product development.
Bardy’s flagship device is an hourglass-shaped patch that Bardy says is designed to be placed on the center of the patient’s chest, over the heart, to diagnose arrhythmia, an irregular heartbeat condition. Patients can wear the patch, which Bardy calls the Carnation Ambulatory Monitor, or CAM, while showering, exercising, and performing other everyday activities, the firm says. Regulators have cleared the device for use in the US and Europe, according to company materials.
According to Bardy’s website, the company is also developing complementary cloud-based software that lets patients and clinicians feed data recorded by the CAM device into a program that analyzes electrocardiograms, or records of heart activity.
“With these funds, we will grow our business by refining and expanding our primary goal of revealing to patients, and their physicians, the full complexity and meaning of their cardiac rhythm,” Gust Bardy, who founded Bardy Diagnostics in 2014 and leads the company as CEO, says in a prepared statement.
Bardy’s CAM device works by monitoring “P waves,” small-amplitude electrocardiogram signals that originate from the atria, the heart’s two upper cavities. P waves can play a critical role in making arrhythmia diagnoses, and in determining what medical treatments or procedures patients should undergo, the company says.
Medical devices, in particular ones designed to monitor a patient’s heart, are a competitive field. In the US, cardiac diagnostic tests are reported to be a $1.5 billion industry, with more than 4 million tests performed each year.
Other companies developing high-tech patches that monitor the wearer’s heart rhythm include AliveCor, iRhythm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:IRTC]]), and Welch Allyn.
Gust Bardy previously led San Clemente, CA-based Cameron Health, which developed an implantable defibrillator. Boston Scientific (NYSE: [[ticker:BSX]]) acquired Cameron Health in 2012 for $150 million up front, plus potential milestone payments.
Cincinnati-based River Cities Capital Funds led the $35.5 million investment in Bardy Diagnostics, the company says. Other deal participants included three return backers—Ascension Ventures, Health Enterprise Partners, and SV Health Investors—and new investors Aperture Venture Partners, Aphelion Capital, HealthQuest Capital, Lumira Ventures, and Rex Health Ventures.
