Medical Device Daily
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One of the top manufacturers of ultrasound scanners for veterinarians is rolling out a lightweight version for medical clinics.

The Imagyne scanner, introduced by ECM (Angouleme, France) in March, is PC-based and includes post-processing, full-color Doppler, pulsed-wave Doppler or triplex mode, and a 4-D display.

An export manager with the company, Eva Galmar, told Medical Device Daily that CE-mark approval for selling the device in Europe is expected this month, but that ECM already has presented the Imagyne scanner at medical expos in China, Dubai, Russia and Turkey.

The European debut is set for Hospital Expo, which will be held in Paris at the end of May.

Imagyne will be offered in ECM's well-established market for diagnostics of farm animals and household pets, but the company said that with a minimal change to the scanner head and significant software adaption, the same hardware is appropriate for human use.

ECM developed the new scanner over several years to make it more powerful, more compact and "user-friendlier" than its current veterinarian line, it says.

The scanner can be fitted with four different probes for convex, micro-convex, phased array and linear abdominal. The rectal probe used by veterinarians is not offered with the medical line.

Galmar said ECM, the sole French manufacturer of ultrasound scanners, has carefully considered its entry into a fiercely competitive medical market dominated by multi-national giants.

She said the company already has booked orders for the medical version of the Iagyne scanner, thanks to the early introduction at medical expos in emerging markets, and that ECM is negotiating with distributors in all targeted markets, including the U.S.

ECM is an affiliate company of Noveko International (Montreal), an investor in medical equipment and supply manufacturers.

Fountain in initial close on $117M fund

Fountain Healthcare Partners (Dublin, Ireland) has reported the first close of its inaugural fund, Fountain Healthcare Partners I, with €75 million ($117 million) of committed capital.

Fountain said it is the largest dedicated life science venture capital firm based in Ireland. It is a spin-out investment team from the corporate venture capital group of Elan (also Dublin).

The principals include Dr. Manus Rogan (Elan, GlaxoSmithKline), Aidan King (Bio-IB, Elan), Dr. Ena Prosser (Enterprise Ireland, Elan) and Justin Lynch (LegendCare, Fyffes, Jones Group and NCB).

The €75 million fund is one of the largest emerging VC funds raised in the life science sector globally in the past two years.

Fountain will invest the majority of its capital in Europe, with an emphasis on the life science sector in Ireland. The firm said the first close "significantly exceeded" initial expectations, and it is now targeting about €100 million in commitments at its final close.

The firm's life sciences focus is on medical devices and diagnostics, biotechnology and specialty pharmaceuticals.

Describing itself as "a product-focused VC fund [that] will invest in companies with product development programs that have a defined pathway to commercialization, value enhancement and exit," Fountain said its principals will take "an active role with investees and will bring considerable industry expertise and a deep network of contacts in the U.S., Europe and Asia to investee companies."

More than 90% of the capital invested in the fund was sourced from institutional investors, 75% of which are Irish-based. Those investors include the European Investment Fund, the National Pension Reserve Fund and Enterprise Ireland. A "select number" of high-net-worth individual investors also participated.

"We have been very pleased with the level and quality of investor participation in the first close. There was clear support for our investment strategy, and we significantly exceeded our original first close target," said Rogan, a founding partner at Fountain.

In addition to its main office in Dublin, Fountain has another office in New York. "The purpose of our New York office is to maintain on-the-ground connectivity with the U.S. life science sector," said King, Fountain's New York-based partner. Specifically, this office will provide our firm and our investee companies access to people, intellectual property, partnering and exit opportunities, syndication capital and deal flow."

RESPeRATE device going on UK market

InterCure (Lod, Israel) reported that its RESPeRATE hypertension treatment device, which it says has been clinically proven to "significantly lower blood pressure," will launch into full-scale retail distribution within the UK this month through the Lloyds Pharmacy (London) chain.

Lloyds will distribute RESPeRATE in 1,440 stores and for a limited period will be the only nationwide retail chain in the UK to carry the product.

As part of the launch, RESPeRATE, which will retail at £199, will be featured in Lloyds' in-store merchandising programs. Lloyds will offer product demonstrations to instruct consumers how to include RESPeRATE in their overall hypertension management regimen.

"With many of our shoppers looking for new ways to manage hypertension with a treatment that fits into their lifestyles, we are pleased to offer RESPeRATE as a complement to our existing line of innovative healthcare products and services," said Justin Woodward, senior marketing manager at Lloyds.

Pediatric Simulator released by Simcyp

Simcyp (Sheffield, UK) has released the 2008 version of the Simcyp Pediatric Simulator, a modeling and simulation platform that provides information relevant to first-time dosing decisions and the design of clinical studies in infants, neonates and children.

Simcyp Pediatric models pharmacokinetic behavior over any age range using in vitro data routinely generated during drug discovery and development. This allows "what-if" questions to be explored in the safety of a computer, the company said. The flexibility of the platform also allows predictions to be made from adult in vivo values by retrograde modelling.