Private Company Edition: Kriya raised the first $270m of its now $430m-plus series C venture capital round in May 2022 and has raised more than $600m to date. Also, Nexo launched with $60m in series A cash, Ossium brought in $52m in series A financing and cell therapy CDMO Kincell launched with $36m.

With the recent success of Ardian’s Symplicity Renal Denervation System, drug-resistant hypertension has emerged as something of a device market “gold rush.” Some observers estimate there are now as many as 40 companies developing various device-based therapies for resistant hypertension, including most of the big names in the cardiovascular device arena – Medtronic, St. Jude Medical, Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson, and Covidien PLC – along with a number of start-ups, all of which are racing to stake a claim in this highly promising market. Only time will tell which companies will be successful – even Medtronic, the first player, has yet to complete its sham-controlled US trial. But the technology’s early promise, along with the sheer size of the opportunity and the acute unmet need, clearly have peaked the interest of investors, manufacturers, and physicians alike, all of whom are chasing after what one participant has called “the next biggest thing in cardiology.”

Highlights from the Q1 2009 review of medical device and in vitro diagnostics/research dealmaking. Device financing activity remained down bringing in only $522 million--the majority invested through VCs, mostly via late-stage venture rounds--not much change from the previous quarter, but a significant drop from Q1 2008, which saw $920 million. Device M&A brought in $4.4 billion, double the previous quarter, but most of Q1's money came from Abbott's $2.86 billion purchase of Advanced Medical Optics. Four other transactions topped the $200 million mark, including three deals by device giant Medtronic, which grabbed cardio companies CoreValve, Ventor Technologies, and Ablation Frontiers. There was also a decline in in vitro diagnostics and research fund-raising with 2009's opening quarter only seeing about half the dollars of Q4 2008.

Despite widespread and increasing prevalence, atrial fibrillation has frustrated clinicians, device companies, and investors, resulting in only a small number of doctors treating a small number of patients. Ablation Frontiers believes its system will finally enable many more doctors to treat all types of AF patients because it is developing products and procedures that are simpler for doctors to use and perform, finally providing a broad-based solution to this rapidly growing market.