Philadelphia medical device developer Strados Labs, which during the past 13 months received marketing clearance in the United States and Europe for its flagship RESP e-stethoscope product, has raised $4.5 million in a pre-Series A funding round.
RESP is the company's platform technology for wirelessly and remotely monitoring patient lung sounds and patterns anywhere and at any time. Strados also has developed patent-pending algorithms to aid in potentially predicting and avoiding pulmonary failure episodes.
The technology — which targets asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and infectious respiratory diseases — is being used primarily by pharmaceutical companies and research organizations to capture lung sound measurements for clinical trials of new drug candidates.
Investors that participated in the round were SOSV, Cultivate(MD), Wavemaker 360, Blu Venture Investors and Philadelphia-based Broad Street Angels.
Strados Co-founder and CEO Nick Delmonico said the funding will allow the company to scale its RESP platform, conduct decentralized clinical trials and boost its proprietary lung sound and breathing pattern database to "create the standard" for acoustic biomarkers.
“What’s really exciting is that we are supporting pharmaceutical companies in their trials by helping them rapidly scale their digital therapeutics using our clinically validated measures for wheeze, cough and other [unexpected] breath sounds — which is something no other cleared device can measure," Delmonico said.
The company's plans for 2022 include expanding its pipeline of smart sensor platforms to support and address additional respiratory disorders and other chronic diseases, securing additional regulatory clearances, and building "deeper" partnerships with pharmaceutical companies and health plans, Delmonico said.
