Chennai, January 17, 2013: Chennai-based medical technology company, Perfint Healthcare, today announced that is has secured USD 11 Million of Series D funding from Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), a leading global venture and growth equity investment firm. Perfint was founded in 2005 by a team of healthcare device professionals who were earlier associated with GE Healthcare in India.
Perfint will use the new capital for
- Commercialization of MAXIO, the company’s recently launched Integrated Visualization, Planning and Robotic Targeting system for CT Guided Tumor Ablations
- New Product development in Ultrasound guided procedures and tissue characterization
- Growth in USA, China and Japan markets where regulatory approvals are awaited
- Set-up and expansion of its Advanced Technology Labs in the USA
Perfint’s award winning products, ROBIO and MAXIO leverage Medical Image Processing and Robotics to help clinicians plan and execute CT guided Cancer Care like Biopsies, Tumor Ablation and CT guided Pain Care procedures like Nerve Root blocks.
Mohan Kumar, a Partner at NVP and on the Board of Perfint said that "Perfint has become a global company since we last invested, with customers in Asia, Europe and Lat Am. They have also setup R&D operations in the US. The market for robotic assisted surgery/interventions is moving into mainstream healthcare and growing in acceptance among surgeons/oncologists. This trend will help Perfint to become a major player in robotic assisted Navigation in Oncology space".
“Our Robotic targeting systems were fully developed our Global Product Development center in Chennai, in association with clinical experts from India. MAXIO has been co-created with the best surgeons and interventional radiologists from across the world. Our next product SONIO is being jointly developed in Canada and India with inputs from clinicians from over 50 countries. Our VP R&D based in Seattle, WA, USA leads our Global Product Development Center in Chennai and Advanced Technology Labs in Seattle. Encouraged by the response from customers in India, we have successfully expanded to Asia Pacific and EU. In anticipation of FDA approval, we have hired our VP of Americas and are building our commercial team there. We already sell in Latin America with a key show-site in Sao Paulo, Brazil. ROBIO has already been in pilot use in few leading hospitals in China and we are in the process of establishing our distribution network there. We hope to receive approvals from PMDA soon and start commercial operations in Japan in the next few months. We are proud of the progress we have made in globalizing our operations, while retaining our focus on emerging markets like India.” said Mr. S. Nandakumar, co-founder and CEO of Perfint. “Norwest Venture Partners has been extremely supportive of our efforts and has played a key role in our growth over the last few years. We look forward to working with NVP as we establish our operations globally.”
Cancer is a leading cause of death in many wealthy countries, and its toll is rising in poorer regions. A 2012 study in The Lancet Oncology predicted that from 2008-2030, cancer incidence will rise 75 percent globally and will double in the least developed countries. Mortality rates from cancers of the Lung and the Liver are amongst the highest globally. Liver Cancer is a huge disease in North Asia and South East Asia. Smoking led lung cancer is rapidly increasing in China, India and most developing countries. Tumor ablation is increasingly preferred as an alternate to or in combination with other forms of therapy, for liver and lung cancer, particularly where several patients are ineligible for surgery. In Japan for example, seven times more ablations are performed than surgery. Over 1500 centers in Japan perform liver ablation. Tumor ablation has also been found effective for treatment of lung malignancies, and sometimes in combination with Radiation Therapy.
“Tumor Ablation is a less invasive procedure and involves targeted delivery of energies like Microwave or RF to the tumor through a thin needle, under Image Guidance. In such procedures, the challenge is in being able to visualize the tumor, plan the procedure and then execute the procedure, particularly needle placement, accurately. MAXIO’s industry leading visualization and planning platform combined with our award winning, well established Robotic targeting platform makes it easier for surgeons, radiologists, hepatologists to perform such procedures effectively. We are very pleased with the feedback we are receiving from expert MAXIO users in EU and Asia” said Gnanasekar V, GM – Advanced Technology Labs, Perfint Healthcare.
About Norwest Venture Partners (NVP)
Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) is a global venture and growth equity investment firm that manages more than $3.7 billion in capital. It has offices in Palo Alto, California, Mumbai and Bengaluru, India and Herzelia, Israel. NVP makes early to late stage venture and growth equity investments in U.S. and global companies across a wide range of sectors including: information technology, business services, financial services, infrastructure, technology enabled services and consumer. NVP has actively partnered with entrepreneurs to build great businesses for more than 49 years and has funded over 450 companies since inception. For more information, please visit www.nvp.com
About Perfint Healthcare
Perfint Healthcare (www.perfinthealthcare.com) is a world leader in planning and targeting solutions for image guided interventional procedures – with an emphasis on oncology and pain care. Perfint’s products, PIGA CT and ROBIO, are used by radiologists around the world for biopsy, drug delivery, ablation, drainage and fine needle aspiration. Perfint’s newest product MAXIO, is set to change the world of Interventional Oncology. MAXIO will allow clinicians to visually plan, execute, and validate CT guided tumor ablation procedures on a single system, and all in 3D. MAXIO has been designed to make complex, multi-probe ablations simpler, which will help to make these life-saving procedures available to more cancer sufferers than ever before.
For more information, please contact:
Katie Belding
Norwest Venture Partners (NVP)
Tel: 650-321-8000
kbelding@nvp.com
Augustine James Dharmaraj,
Good Relations India Pvt. Ltd.,
+91 44 42640303, 404, +91 98400 90034, augustine@gri.co.in Fax :+91 44 4263 8128