September 3, 2020
PhotoniCare, Inc., a company dedicated to revolutionizing healthcare by providing physicians with better diagnostic tools, today announced an oversubscribed $5.2 million Series A financing led by i2E Management Company Inc., with co-investment from OSF Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, and Dreampact Ventures. The company also announced that it has received a $2.1 million Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The competitive NIH SBIR program funds early-stage small businesses seeking to commercialize innovative biomedical technologies.
PhotoniCare, in January of this year, announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had granted clearance for its TOMi™ Scope for non-invasive imaging of the middle ear. The only technology capable of visualizing through the eardrum to assess middle ear fluid directly, the simple-to-use TOMi Scope helps to determine the presence or absence of fluid in the middle ear and to characterize the type of fluid.
The presence of fluid in the middle ear is a primary indicator for determining ear infection, which is the leading cause of hearing loss, surgery and antibiotic use, especially in children. More than ten million children per year experience ear infections in the U.S. alone; however, the current gold standard of otoscopy is a rudimentary tool that looks only at the surface of the eardrum, leading to misdiagnosis rates as high as 50%.
Designed to eliminate subjectivity and speculation, the TOMi Scope allows physicians, for the first time, to directly visualize fluid in the middle ear where ear infections reside, and to measure the fluid’s density even in the presence of wax – providing objective data upon which to base their decisions. A recent 70-patient study with Children’s National Health System in Washington, D.C., demonstrated 91% sensitivity and 90% specificity for TOMi Scope’s technology for detecting fluid through the intact eardrum.
The funds will be used to expand PhotoniCare’s executive team, ramp up manufacturing, execute on the company’s sales and marketing plan, fuel artificial intelligence development to enable real-time decision support for the TOMi Scope, and expand reimbursement activities and customer support.