Toronto’s Moleculight has raised a $4 million seed round of funding from Toronto’s iGan partners. The company specializes in Medical imaging, creating a unique and disruptive fluorescence-based technology platform to revolutionize wound care management at the point of care.
Specifically, the company developed a “revolutionary” portable and handheld optical imaging platform for clinical wound assessment and treatment guidance at the point-of-care. The company’s first product is a handheld fluorescence imaging device that enables clinicians to rapidly assess a wound’s bacterial burden and use that information to guide sampling and treatment delivery.
“Chronic wounds represent a significant burden to patients and health care systems across the globe. Unfortunately, wound care has not enjoyed the same pace or level of innovation in diagnostic and interventional guidance technologies that other more well-known diseases have,” said founder Dr. Ralph DaCosta. “MolecuLight has set its sights on meeting this unmet need in wound care and sees future potential for its proprietary platform imaging technologies in other globally-relevant markets. A partnership with iGan Partners has helped us to accelerate the growth of the company as well as the pace of commercialization of our products to get them into the hands of clinicians as soon as possible.”
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Over six years of clinical trial studies have shown the potential to bring significant improvements to the wound care industry. Among other things, Moleculight said its technology will provide image guided sampling, debridement and real-time quantitative analysis of chronic wounds, which results in improved patient outcomes and a more efficient use of clinical resources. Initial data from ongoing clinical studies show that wounds heal three times faster and cost 70 percent less to the system when the MolecuLight technology is used to guide treatment and therapy.
DaCosta is a molecular imaging scientist at the University Health Network.
The funds will be used obtain regulatory approvals in US, Canada and Europe, hire talent and prepare products for full commercialization.
“There has been a lack of innovation in the wound care market and the current standards are quite outdated. MolecuLight has developed a disruptive platform technology that will not only help wounds heal faster but also reduce costs significantly,” said iGan’s Sam Ifergan. “We are very excited about the prospects of this company as it has the potential to disrupt the market and emerge as a leader in this space.”