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Lung Imaging Medtech Start-Up 4DX Aims to be the Next Cochlear After Raising
- Published March 08, 2016 10:31AM UTC
- Publisher Wholesale Investor
- Categories Company Updates
7th March 2016, AFR By Yolanda Redrup
A Monash University mechanical engineering professor has kicked off a $4 million capital raising round for the commercialisation of lung imaging technology, which can enable earlier detection of lung cancer.
Dr Andreas Fouras abandoned his academic career to turn one of his discoveries into a business, 4DX, selling his house and moving his family to Los Angeles to “give it a go”.
While it was a risky move, so far it’s paying off, with 4DX securing a partnership with major LA hospital Cedars Sinai, attracting the interest of many others (including the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic) and raising more than $3.2 million to date in funding from high net worth individuals.
The current capital raising round will bring its total funding to $7.2 million and in just a few weeks it has already secured $700,000 of the round.
Dr Fouras said the company would remain headquartered in Australia, but that tackling the US market was critical to its success.
“Every year in Australia there are 1.1 million diagnostic procedures to diagnose lung disease, but in the US there are 72.6 million procedures every year,” he said.
“The tools that are out there are out of date. They require the two or three pieces of diagnostic information to piece together what is happening in someone’s lungs.”
Improved Technology
Whereas current lung imaging techniques tend to give an overall picture of the amount of air a lung is taking in, 4DX’s technology highlights if there are parts of the lungs which are receiving less air, helping in the early diagnoses of lung diseases and more effective treatment.
A specialist in wind tunnel imaging, Dr Fouras realised his expertise could be used to fix problems in the health industry.
“I am basically applying wind tunnel technology into imaging the lungs and combining that with some existing medical technology … in the end both are measuring how the air flows through and around something,” he said.
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