More than 100 angel investors helped ALung Technologies Inc. in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to a $14 million fundraising round, according to Pop City. ALung will use the latest investor capital to pay for ongoing clinical trials of its Hemolung Respiratory Assist System -- a kind of artificial lung that removes carbon dioxide directly from a patient's blood while infusing it with oxygen.
The money will start human trials on the device, called CardioARM, and complete a commercial product to be submitted for both U.S. and European approval. Cardiorobotics thinks its slender winding robot that remembers its path through the body can by used in an array of surgical procedures. But CardioARM itself could be used in up to 1 million relevant cardiac procedures a year, including ablations.
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.