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SEATTLE December 26, 2017
AngelMD, an investment and networking platform connecting innovative medical startups, physicians, investors, and industry partners, announced today that it has completed a Syndicate funding round for Aqueduct Critical Care. Aqueduct focuses on products that improve the ease of use, patient mobility, and safety related to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) draining, as well as intracranial pressure monitoring (ICP).
There are a number of fundamental problems with today's treatment for CSF drainage and ICP monitoring. The first of these is that the technology hasn't evolved in decades, leading to mobility and monitoring issues for the patient. In most cases, patients are required to spend their time in an intensive care unit (ICU) under intense supervision. Every patient movement can interrupt the CSF flow, requiring frequent medical staff intervention.
Aqueduct’s SED system feature set includes automatic controls, a gravity-fed system, touch-screen programming, and console-based sensors which allow the device to automatically adjust CSF flow rates to compensate for patient movement. This automatic adjustment, regulation of flow rate, and alarm system anchors SED into the position of becoming the standard of care for patients whose ICP is being managed by CSF drains.
“We are pleased to partner with AngelMD,” said Tom Clement, co-founder and CEO of Aqueduct Critical Care, Inc. “As a serial medical device entrepreneur, I value the AngelMD financial investment and, even more importantly, the physician network they bring to the partnership. Expanding our network of physicians experts is invaluable for a company at our stage.”
The Aqueduct team also sees a pathway to help with dementia. As defined by the Alzheimer’s Association, normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) is a brain disorder in which excess cerebrospinal fluid accumulates in the brain's ventricle, causing thinking and reasoning problems, difficulty walking, and loss of bladder control. Aqueduct’s lumbar drain holds the promise of better outcomes for NPH patients in a huge and growing market.
“CSF drainage is a common need for many patients with central nervous system disease or injury. Current technology requires ICU level care and has not changed in 50 years,” said Syndicate Lead and AngelMD Scientific Advisory Board member Navdeep S Rai, MD, FACP, FCCP. “Aqueduct has an elegant solution that makes me question why someone didn’t think of this before. The drainage system will modernize management of these patients, decreasing resource needs while improving data collection and alarm systems. We will be moving more patients out of costly ICUs. The recently-approved lumbar drain will fundamentally change the way we diagnose NPH, currently the only reversible cause of dementia.”
About AngelMD
AngelMD is an investment and networking platform connecting innovative medical startups, physicians, investors, and industry partners. Leading physicians from all over the US have joined AngelMD to help source, evaluate and advise companies in biotechnology, medical device, and healthcare technology. For more information, visit http://www.angelmd.co.
About Aqueduct Critical Care
In 2013, Aqueduct Critical Care, Inc. was founded to address the problems associated with the current CSF drain and ICP monitoring systems. Currently, Aqueduct’s Smart External Drain (SED), an FDA cleared external CSF drainage and ICP monitoring system is in use at a handful of centers around the US in a post-marketing trial for ventricular indications.
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