Key Points
- The company has received support from a Canadian pilot fund and secured a $16.5 million Series A financing round.
- The Foundation funded a preclinical study at Dalhousie University and Virginia Tech to evaluate the use of Sound Blade’s handheld histotripsy device.
Sound Blade Medical, a newly formed focused ultrasound company that spun out of Dalhousie University, recently received the support of Canada’s INOVAIT Pilot Fund and secured a $16.5 million Series A financing round. The Foundation has also funded a preclinical research project that will help Sound Blade develop its handheld histotripsy device for clinical use. Histotripsy is a type of focused ultrasound that uses the energy of the ultrasound to mechanically disrupt cells without heat.
Jeremy Brown, PhD, a professor of biomedical engineering at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, is the CEO and founder of Sound Blade Medical. In collaboration with Dalhousie University and Daxsonics Ultrasound, the company is developing handheld, image-guided histotripsy with the assistance of artificial intelligence machine learning algorithms.
“We are absolutely thrilled to receive this level of investment, and it will allow Sound Blade to rapidly progress the technology and move on to clinical testing in a very short time frame,” said Dr. Brown.
Based in Canada, INOVAIT is an innovation network designed to advance and support the development and commercialization of image-guided therapies. INOVAIT’s September 2024 announcement included Sound Blade Medical as one of its six successful recipients of the competitive INOVAIT Pilot Fund. Beyond its membership-based support structure, INOVAIT also receives funds from the Government of Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund.
For the Series A funding round, lead investors Amzak Health and Lumira Ventures were joined by Invest Nova Scotia. Funds will be used to accelerate the development and clinical validation of Sound Blade Medical’s technology, which is being designed to address a wide range of applications.
The Foundation funded a preclinical research project supporting Dr. Brown at Dalhousie University and the research of Eli Vlaisavljevich, PhD, at Virginia Tech. The goal of the project is to evaluate Sound Blade’s miniature handheld histotripsy technology in a longitudinal preclinical study. Ultimately, the goal of the project is to demonstrate that noninvasive histotripsy treatment results in lower complication rates than surgery.
“The Focused Ultrasound Foundation congratulates Sound Blade on their successful launch and fundraising,” said Joe Kilroy, PhD, Associate Director of the Foundation’s Research and Education Team. “This study and the resulting company are an example of our research dollars supporting the rapid translation of focused ultrasound to address a significant unmet clinical need.”