Cardionomic Banks $20 Million to Develop Heart Failure Therapy

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Medical device developer Cardionomic, Inc., today announced that it has received $20 million in Series A financing. Investors include New Enterprise Associates (NEA), the Cleveland Clinic, Greatbatch Inc., and others.

“Extensive pre-clinical and human data gathered over the past three years demonstrates our therapy improves cardiac contractility in heart failure patients”

The company will use the funding to continue development of an innovative neuromodulation therapy for Acute Decompensated Heart Failure (ADHF), a condition in which patients with heart failure experience fluid accumulation in their lungs and other tissues, making it difficult for them to breathe, sleep and function.

ADHF leads to more than 1 million U.S. hospital admissions and to healthcare costs exceeding $10 billion annually, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). Furthermore, nearly one-quarter of ADHF patients are readmitted to the hospital within one month of treatment and half are re-hospitalized within six months. With hospitals facing financial penalties for readmissions within 30 days, the high rate of re-hospitalization of ADHF patients is a growing concern.

“Current ADHF approaches, all of which use drug therapies, inadequately treat the condition and have not improved over the past decades,” said William T. Abraham, M.D., Cardionomic’s chief medical officer and one of the world’s leading heart failure physicians. “The Cardionomic therapy targets the primary cause of worsening heart failure, namely decreased myocardial contractility.” Increased contractility improves the heart’s pumping performance.

Cardionomic’s therapy selectively stimulates cardiac nerve branches, which safely improves contractility and addresses the disorder’s root cause instead of focusing on relief of symptoms, which is the current standard of care. The therapy is expected to be delivered to the patient upon admission and to remain in place for one to three days before it is removed.

“This targeted increase in contractility rebalances hemodynamics to normalize blood flow to organs, such as the kidneys and brain, and restores kidney function to eliminate fluids. It thereby treats both the root cause of ADHF and its symptoms,” said Abraham.

“Extensive pre-clinical and human data gathered over the past three years demonstrates our therapy improves cardiac contractility in heart failure patients,” said Steve Goedeke, Cardionomic president and chief executive officer. “This evidence, along with the pressing need for a new approach to treat ADHF, helped drive our successful first-round.”

About Cardionomic
Based in Minneapolis, Minn., Cardionomic is developing a catheter-based neuromodulation therapy for treating Acute Decompensated Heart Failure (ADHF), a condition that leads to 3.5 million hospital admissions in the U.S. and Europe annually. To learn more about Cardionomic, visit: http://cardionomicinc.com/