A Chicago startup making patient physiology monitoring a little smarter just raised a funding round to bring their product to market.
Healthtech startup PhysIQ just announced it raised an $8 million Series B. The round was led by Madison-based 4490 Ventures, with participation from the Global Health Sciences (GHS) Fund through Quark Venture Inc. and GF Securities, along with existing investor LionBird, among others.
PhysIQ plans to use the funding to bring its Vitalink solution to market. Essentially an Internet-of-Things solution for hospitals, Vitalink is an Android-based app that collects physiological data from wearables and implantable sensors then uses AI to analyze data and alert physicians if there are any notable changes.
PhysIQ is FDA-approved and already completed a pilot program with with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and have four contracts--two with pharmaceutical companies and two with medical device companies--to monitor patients involved with clinical studies, according to Crain's.
The tech was originally developed at Argonne National Lab, Crain's also reports. It was first used in industrial monitoring startup SmartSignal, which General Electric bought in 2011. PhysIQ founder Gary Conkright licensed the tech 12 years ago for healthcare.
"PhysIQ’s proprietary AI-enabled technology detects subtle, yet significant, changes in physiological parameters, thereby allowing healthcare enterprises to proactively manage patients to mitigate the costs associated with readmissions, inadequate therapies, non-adherent patients and other clinical events in commercial, government and clinical trial settings," said Conkright, also PhysIQ's CEO, in a release.
In addition to the funding round, PhysIQ announced Dan Malven, managing partner at 4490 Ventures, and Zafrira Avnur, chief scientific officer at Quark Venture, have joined the PhysIQ board of directors.
“The convergence of IT and medicine holds the promise to fundamentally change how clinicians diagnose, treat, prescribe, intervene and manage patient health," added Malven in the release. "Converting continuous data into actionable insight is a foundational capability to the future of healthcare delivery. The PhysIQ team is uniquely equipped to make that happen with their market leading cloud-based platform and personalized analytics technology, protected with over 100 issued patents, that they previously commercialized in other highly demanding industries.”
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