Endotronix Secures $32 Million in Series C Funding to Advance Heart Failure Management Platform

Congestive heart failure affects 5.7 million Americans, costing the healthcare system $30.5 billion, including expenses for medical services, medications, and productivity losses due to absenteeism.

Efforts are underway to address treatment challenges and alleviate the financial burden associated with this disease. VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned from foreign media that Endotronix, an emerging company based in Woodridge, Illinois, recently secured $32 million in Series C financing. The funding round was led by a consortium of investors, including BioVenture Investors, SV Life Sciences (SVLS), Lumira Capital, Aperture Venture Partners, and OSF Ventures.

Endotronix has previously undergone multiple rounds of financing, with total funding to date reaching $50 million. Its CEO, Dr. Roland, believes that combining hardware and software may be a successful strategy for addressing congestive heart failure.

Endotronix’s Cloud-Based Heart Failure Disease Management Platform

Endotronix, founded in 2007 and headquartered east of Peoria, Illinois, is a medical device company that develops miniature wireless implantable pressure sensors and associated disease management platforms based on digital health and cloud computing technologies. Endotronix provides patients with heart conditions with wireless implantable pulmonary artery pressure sensors for remote monitoring. While changes in cardiac pressure are widely regarded as the most precise indicator of heart disease, they have only recently been incorporated into clinical devices. Endotronix integrates its medical device system with a cloud-based patient management platform, enabling patients, physicians, and caregivers to access pressure and physiological data to monitor the patient’s current health status.

Dr. Roland is one of the company’s co-founders and serves as CEO, overseeing operations, strategy, and technological development. He earned his B.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and his M.S. from the University of California. With over a decade of experience in micro- and nanofabrication technologies, Dr. Roland has a strong interest in interdisciplinary technologies and emerging business opportunities. His projects have drawn invitations from institutions such as Sandia National Laboratories, the University of New Mexico, and Three-Body University.

Dr. Nunez serves as the General Manager of Endotronix, Inc. He is a practicing cardiothoracic surgeon in Vernon, Illinois, a leader at Samaritan Regional Health Center, and a clinical instructor at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He received training in heart transplantation and mechanical circulatory support at the Cleveland Clinic and has previously held positions at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and the NIH/NHLBI.

Patients with chronic diseases or congestive heart failure impose a significant burden not only on their families but also on the entire healthcare system. Hospitals are seeking ways to manage out-of-hospital patients to reduce readmission rates, thereby minimizing financial penalties from Medicare and Medicaid centers resulting from such readmissions.

Endotronix Accelerates Commercialization

“This software strategy has enabled the company to achieve rapid commercial progress,” said Harry Rowland in a recent phone interview. It is a disease management platform that helps cardiology practices and heart failure clinics remotely manage their patients, thereby avoiding unnecessary rushes to the emergency room. Recently, hospitals have faced substantial penalties if heart failure patients are readmitted within 30 days of discharge.

Endotronix’s hardware strategy follows in the footsteps of CardioMEMS, an emerging company that was acquired by St. Jude Medical in 2014, shortly after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its wireless, implantable pulmonary artery pressure sensor. Endotronix is currently seeking Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, which will enable the company to initiate clinical trials for its sensor device.

However, a portion of the $32 million raised this month will be used to expand digital health remote monitoring devices and further commercialization. Roland believes it can provide much-needed support to struggling cardiology care teams.

“The challenge in caring for these patients is that you are overwhelmed,” he stated. “There are too many patients with heart failure seeking care and being hospitalized. How do you manage this? How do you cope with the immense workload in clinics and hospitals? Most importantly, how can you proactively reach out to patients before they flood into healthcare facilities?”

Roland hopes that Endotronix’s care management solution can help reduce the burden. This digital remote monitoring strategy enables data export from home-based devices—once authorized, data from blood pressure monitors, pulse oximeters, scales, and heart rate monitors can be exported—and ensures that the cardiology team, including cardiologists, nurses, and care coordinators, has access to this information. Furthermore, the software facilitates communication between patients and the care team. Perhaps even more valuable is the platform’s likely adaptability to clinical workflows, which are often a stumbling block in the adoption of digital health solutions.

“Behind the clinician, it is about organizing information in a meaningful way; it is about having standardized care integrated with information, so that routine follow-up is available when needed, and urgent follow-up is also available when necessary.”

Of course, integration with electronic medical records (EMRs) would be ideal; however, given the wide variety of disparate systems, Roland opted for an independent platform capable of sharing data with providers’ EMRs, as opposed to achieving true EMR integration.

The extent of clinical application still needs to be improved.

“A major industry challenge is how we can become part of the system,” he said, acknowledging the difficulties in adopting new technologies in medical practice.

Over the next six months, we will focus on launching the care management system at clinical sites. However, we hope that once the implantable sensors pass clinical trials and receive regulatory approval, Endotrox will have a truly robust system that integrates care management with advanced medical device therapy to address the challenges of advanced heart failure.

“This software solution does receive some reimbursement from private and public payers,” said Roland. But implanted sensors—if the fate of St. Jude Medical’s CardioMEMS wireless heart failure system is any indication—could run into trouble.

Although clinical data have demonstrated that CardioMEMS implantation can significantly reduce hospitalizations in patients with congestive heart failure, regional Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) have declined to include it in Medicare coverage. Speculation has arisen regarding whether the device’s price—listed at $18,000—is too high. St. Jude Medical is seeking nationwide Medicare coverage for the device from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Roland is confident that health insurance providers will eventually recognize the value of this device. The CardioMEMS device can detect changes in cardiac pressure, a metric widely regarded as the most accurate indicator of worsening heart failure; however, until recently, it could only be measured in clinical settings.

“Some decisions by Medicare management contractors are based more on the initial set of favorable data (from the pivotal trials that supported FDA approval in 2014), but as we look at long-term data, we find it increasingly robust,” said Roland.