Photonics Healthcare, a privately held medical device company, announced today the closing of its first venture capital financing round led by High-Tech Gründerfonds and Bayern Kapital. Photonics Healthcare commercialises the measurement of cellular oxygen metabolism. The proceeds of this round will be used in the development and testing of a non-invasive patient monitor that allows doctors to monitor oxygen inside the cells of a patient and adapt their treatments accordingly.

Does a patient need a blood transfusion or not? The answer to this question still involves guesswork: the situation inside the cells of a patient is unknown. Physicians manage oxygen supply to tissue without knowing how much oxygen is available to the cells and how fast it is consumed. Photonics Healthcare’s COMET patient monitor for cellular oxygen metabolism makes this information available. The optical measurement of oxygen in the mitochondria inside a patient’s cells is made possible by patent protected inventions that anaesthesiologist and intensive care physician Dr. Bert Mik made at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam and Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. “For years”, Dr. Mik says, “I have been working towards the goal to provide colleagues with a tool to monitor oxygenation at the cellular level. The COMET monitor will finally allow us to understand what is happening in the tissue cells of our patients.”

“The support and validation provided by the strong and internationally reputed investors who join us will be very helpful in the further development of Photonics Healthcare”, says Michael Münker, managing director and co-founder of the company, “Together, we are looking forward to introducing vital information into clinical practice, to enable doctors to adapt treatments to the need of each individual patient. With cellular oxygen, doctors can treat what matters.”

“After Pulsoximetry the new approach of COMET will be the next generation in patientmonitoring and transfusionmanagement. The studies done so far are auspicious.” says Ron Winkler, Investmentmanager with High-Tech Gruenderfund.

“For the first time the COMET-technology allows a non-invasive quantitative measurement of oxygen inside the cell. This disruptive innovation has the potential of being a game changer in the critical care market.” , says Andreas Huber, Senior-Investmentmanager at Bayern Kapital.

About Photonics Healthcare
Photonics Healthcare commercializes the first measurement of a vital sign from inside a patient’s cells. It develops and tests a clinical monitor for cellular oxygen based on exclusive licenses to the intellectual property from both the Academic Medical Center and the Erasmus Medical Center and collaborates with Erasmus Medical Center, notably in a Eurostars project with InnoLas Laser GmbH.

For more information, visit www.photonicshealthcare.com

Contact: 
Photonics Healthcare GmbH
Michael Münker
Lichtenbergstraße 8
85748 Garching bei München
Germany
press@photonicshealthcare.com

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapital GmbH, founded at the end of 1995 as part of the “Bavarian Future Initiative, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the LfA Foerderbank Bayern (Bavaria’s development bank). Bayern Kapital’s objective is to finance research and development as well as the market launch of new products. To date, Bayern Kapital has invested approx. € 188 m in more than 221 innovative, high-tech companies. Bayern Kapital currently manages an overall fund volume of about € 200 m.

Contact:
BayernKapital GmbH
Andreas Huber, Brigitte Linseis
Ländgasse 135a
84028 Landshut
info@bayernkapital.de
www.bayernkapital.de

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
High-Tech Gründerfonds invests risk capital in young, high-opportunity technology companies that turn promising research results into business. The seed financing helps the startups to take their R&D projects or prototypes to marketentrance. The funding share is initially €500,000; up to a total of €2 million is available per company. Investors in the public-private partnership include the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the KfW Banking Group, and 17 industrial companies: ALTANA, BASF, B. Braun, Robert Bosch, CEWE Color, Daimler, Deutsche Post DHL, Deutsche Telekom, Evonik, Lanxess, media + more venture Beteiligungs GmbH & Co. KG, METRO, Qiagen, RWE Innogy, SAP, Tengelmann, and Carl Zeiss. High-Tech Gründerfonds has total available funds of €573.5 million (€272 million in Fund I and €301.5 million in Fund II).

Contact:
High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH
Ron Winkler
Schlegelstraße 2
53113 Bonn
Tel.: +49 (228) 823 001-00
Fax: +49 (228) 823 000-50
info@high-tech-gruenderfonds.de
www.high-tech-gruenderfonds.de