Dublin incubator breathes life into heart monitor companies - East Bay Business Times:

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, which for the last four years has been developing a wirelessfetal monitor, has been functioning under the care of Shennib'es incubator, the . The company just landed a new chievfexecutive officer, Dennis Meister, who speng the last 25 yearsz developing clinical applications for women's health. Meister joined Prenate on July 2. His task will be helpinfg Shennib raise financing and take the monitor to markegby 2010. Prenatek doesn't have a product on the markeft yet and has no other In stealth modeuntik recently, Prenatek is one of two companies that Shennib has spun out of the Centedr for Medical Device Innovations, foundecd in 2004.
The centee focuses on developing intellectual property portfolios for the companiesit creates, most involving ultra-miniaturized technology to solvew health-care problems. It works closely with a network of includingNed Scheetz, founder of LLC, an investmenft firm focusing on health care, and John a former senior executive with "We started with eight differenyt ideas and we went out and talkexd to over 50 doctors," Shennib "We asked how do you do thingxs today, what are the products and what are the Out of the eight ideas we came up with, we narrowed it down to The second company birthed from the Center for Medical Devic e Innovations is Cardiovu, which is developing a similart "smart patch" monitor for the adult heart.
It is stil a very early stage company and its products have yet to cleadclinical trials. Prenatek's fetal monitor has cleared preliminaru "proof of principle" clinical trials in a real hospitalo withlive patients. The monitort is implanted into adisposable "smarf patch" that the expectant motherr wears on her abdomen. Unlike monitords that use ultrasound technology, this monitor registers the rhythm directly fromthe pre-birtgh infant's heart, which at 28 weeks is about the size of a The data is transferred wirelessly to the woman's physician or the woman herself.
The company hopes to sell the monito first to hospitals for use with womenwith high-risj pregnancies and later as a product that all expectanrt mothers could use themselves for reassurance that a pregnancy is goingy well. "This (monitor) is targeting pregnant said Shennib. "We are lookingv at a fetal monitorfor high-risk pregnancieds and normal ones. The mother would have the assurancse that the baby is doing well He estimated that there aresome 4.1 million pregnanyt women in the United States and a third of them experienced some type of complication. Prenatek previously receivecd a $500,000 round of financing, but will be looking for a much greaterr amount thistime around.
In the searchj that led to Meister's hiring, Shennibv said, he was looking for someonwe with industry experience toreplace Prenatek'sx former CEO, Thar Hassoon, who left in February. "Ond of the things that attracted me wasthe company' s IP position," said who held several senior management positions with and previouslyg ran the Sequoia ultrasound line for sonographh manufacturer "This is an exciting new technologgy that is locked down by the Meister said he was also impressede by the track record of Shennib, who also foundedf in Newark and has a track record of developinhg medical devices for other InSound last year released its first product: a tiny hearintg aid called the Lyric that is worn insidwe the ear, just a few millimeters from the ear and doesn't need to be taken out often.
The like other products developed by is disposable forhygiene reasons. Prenatek says its fetakl heart monitor will alsobe "low cost," but company officialse declined to estimate how much they mighyt charge for it.