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Posts Tagged ‘co:Point-Biomedical’

point-biomedical-logo.gifPoint Biomedical, a San Carlos, Calif., developer of new biomedical-imaging products, raised $25 million in a recapitalization, peHub reports. Such recapitalizations often amount to a kind of “reset button” for existing investors and lenders, and usually suggest that a startup has run into some kind of significant — but not insurmountable — obstacle.

Investors in the recap round include new investor Vedanta Opportunities Fund and existing investors William Blair Capital Partners, De Novo Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners, Saints Capital, Sprout Group and CHL Medical Partners. The recapitalization includes an additional $32.3 million that will become available to Point Bio once it attains an unspecified milestone, which it expects to occur in April.

There’s presumably a release about this, but Point Bio’s Web site has been down all morning, so for now I’m relying on peHub and VentureWire reports. I’ll update if the release turns up. According to VentureWire, Point Bio had previously raised over $110 million from a variety of venture-capital and private-equity firms.

Point Bio is developing a medical imaging and drug-delivery technology based on tiny, nested spheres it calls the BiSphere. This technology is currently in late-stage trials as an “imaging agent” that should make it possible to observe the flow of blood through the heart using ultrasound instead of more invasive methods. We previously covered the company when it raised money last July and described its technology in more detail there.

Point Biomedical, a San Carlos, Calif., biotechnology company developing a new medical-imaging and drug-delivery technology, raised $4.3 million toward an expected seventh funding round of up to $25.7 million, VentureWire reports (subscription required), citing an SEC filing last month (no link available).

Point Biomedical’s focus is a tiny collapsible particle it calls the biSphere, which it is currently studying in clinical trials to aid in the imaging of blood flow within vessels and tissues. The company’s biSpheres consist of a pair of nested spheres that are designed to collapse when subjected to a pulse of ultrasound. When filled with a gas such as nitrogen, which provides a strong ultrasound “echo,” the spheres can make it possible to image the flow of blood in various organs. Crushed by ultrasound, the spheres release the highly visible nitrogen, which is then swept away and replaced by new spheres. The spheres could also be used to deliver drugs to a specific area.

Point Biomedical is currently studying the spheres in late-stage human trials as a non-invasive way to image blood flow in the heart and an alternative to assays that rely on radioactive particles.

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