Medtech Startup 4.0
Medical technology, or medtech, sits at the intersection of technological innovation and health care. It encompasses a wide range of products and services that help people to be healthy through earlier diagnoses, better treatment options, shorter hospital stays and more successful rehabilitation efforts. The medtech startup space is comprised of an array of firms advancing disruptive and innovative devices and applications via several sub-sectors, each and any of which enjoy dedicated investment interest on the part of private equity, venture capital firms focused on medtech startup prospectus information and strategic industry investors from across the healthcare ecosystem. Here are a few examples:
- Wearables: These are portable devices that monitor a person’s condition and activities, possibly communicating their data to the wearer’s local computing devices and/or over the Internet to programs that process the information and, when necessary, alert medical professionals. Activity trackers are wearables that monitor movement, calorie expenditure, heart rates, etc., to help wearers maintain and improve their physical health. A Holter monitor continuously measures and records heart activity for up to several days to detect abnormalities. Wearable insulin pumps constantly measure a patient’s blood glucose levels and automatically inject insulin as required. Wearable deep brain stimulators can be used to deliver precise electrical currents to the brain of patients with diseases like Parkinson’s or epilepsy.
One particularly innovative medtech startup company is Brain Tunnelgenix Technologies (BTT Corp.). Founded by industry pioneer Dr. Marc Abreu, whose pedigree includes roles at Harvard Medical School and Yale University, where he served as clinical faculty in the Department of Anesthesiology and was a post-doctoral fellow and faculty in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Abreu’s company is a classic medtech startup case study. In cooperation with a Yale University research study that began in 2003, Abreu’s firm has since developed what it claims (and confirmed by many others within the healthcare sector) is the first and only system to non-invasively and continuously capture temperature measurements or thermodynamic signals from the brain thermal tunnel. According to multiple third party assessments of the firm’s technology, its potential broad applications and more than three dozen patents in its quiver, Abreu’s discovery within the framework of  brain temperature measurement and precision-based approach to the most effective way to gauge the health of the human body is viewed as a classic game-changer for a broad cross-section of healthcare providers and multiple non-surgical diagnostic and preventive care applications, from worksite to professional sports to use by military personnel. BTT’s flagship device is the Abreu BTT™ 700 System, which provides for the continuous monitoring of skin temperature during surgical procedures, recovery room, intensive care, and general patient monitoring. The unit will alert the patient and/or hospital personnel when the monitored temperature exceeds or falls below pre-selected levels. The company is developing subscription services to help manage and research numerous health conditions, such as Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, sleep disorders, influenza, and stroke risk, as well as helping people improve their performance by protecting against heatstroke in sports, military and industrial worksite applications.
- At-home diagnostics: These are products that provide better, faster and/or cheaper diagnostic information. For example, you can purchase an at-home colon cancer screening kit that might be more cost-effective, and certainly more convenient, than a colonoscopy. Specialized at-home DNA tests can screen for inherited diseases such as certain forms of breast cancer. The information collected by these at-home products can be used to alert patients and physicians to impending health risks and possibly trigger earlier treatment.
- Public health: Advanced “big data” collection and processing can be used to track, say, the occurrences of a dangerous, contagious virus so that public health officials can deploy resources efficiently, possibly containing outbreaks before they spread.
- Robotic surgery: These are high-tech devices that facilitate minimally invasive surgery using miniaturized surgical instruments and magnified three-dimensional imaging. These devices provide a level of precision and control beyond that of mere mortals, thereby improving outcomes and lowering overall costs.
- Therapy: New, non-invasive medical devices are used in a variety of settings. For instance, one device treats Alzheimer’s patients by delivering a combination of magnetic brain stimulation and cognitive training. Patients with heart failure, recovering heart attack victims, transplant candidates, etc., can be treated with a ventricular assist system that helps the heart pump blood. Device makers are constantly developing improved body-part replacements for hips, knees, and so forth.
Data processing and communications techniques are often central to medtech. For example, artificial-intelligence-based engines can learn to diagnose conditions by integrating data analysis of patients with information gathered from clinical emergency medicine. When provided with collected data, such as body temperature, body chemistry, biological functions and vital signs, algorithms are able to diagnose dozens of diseases and in turn, enable healthcare professionals to more effectively implement treatment protocols that can alleviate or stem the progression of ailments.
Medtech startups usually require substantial funding. Prospectus.com, a leading provider of prospectus and offering memorandum writing services, helps startups fund their initiatives by providing the types of documentation required by investors and regulators. The consultancy has a global footprint and is staffed by seasoned finance industry veterans, securities attorneys, investor document preparation experts and investor relations professionals who help entrepreneurs develop business plans and presentation decks, create private placement and other investor offering memoranda, arrange capital introductions, and provide many other services that medtech firms can use to launch and grow.
Above article is part of a series of informative articles profiling tech industry startup sectors, including the recently prepared “adtech” coverage. This submission is courtesy of Eric Bank, a Greenville, SC-based freelance writer specializing in financial and business topics. Eric has written over 1,500 articles for Demand Media Studios and serves clients around the world for whom he creates web content, thought-leadership whitepapers and articles and blogs and edit existing materials.
Feature image courtesy of industry publication Medtech Innovator, all rights reserved.
Medtech Startup Prospectus – Profit By Disrupting Healthcare Industry To Save Lives