Cardiovascular diseases are claimed to be the world’s leading cause of death accounting for 19 million deaths a year. This is mainly due to the difficulty in diagnosing conditions, which leads to delays in treatment. Dutch photonics-based medtech Amazec’s solution tackles this by enabling an earlier and more accurate diagnosis at minimal costs and complexity.
The startup just secured €1.5 million in seed funding led by PhotonDelta, a Dutch cross-border growth accelerator that closed €1.1 billion to help the Netherlands take the lead in photonic chip technologies. It has also invested in the VC firm PhotonVentures.
In addition to PhotoDelta, the investment round saw participation from a number of private investors. Amazec Photonics will use the investment to develop minimally invasive and more accurate diagnosis devices for clinical trials. Amazec will begin clinical trials of its device at Catharina Hospital in Eindhoven this year, with an expansion to three other hospitals planned in 2025. It aims to debut full-scale production and sale across the EU in 2028.
Next-gen diagnosis tech
Amazec Photonics was founded in 2021 by Ton Backx, who retired from Eindhoven University of Technology alongside Pim Kat, Erik Korsten, and Arthur Bouwman. It was founded with the idea that measurement of heart and cardiovascular conditions can be done with more accuracy using an integrated photonics-based technology.
It creates easy-to-apply cardiovascular monitoring tools unlike existing solutions are complex, invasive, and often inaccurate. Amazec’s solution uses photonics-based technology to measure temperature changes to an unprecedented precision of 0.0001˚C while that of the existing method is 0.01˚C. The monitoring device is external which means there is no need to insert catheters. Multiple measurements can be made in real-time which improves reliability, unlike the single measurement used in current methods.
Pim Kat, CEO of Amazec Photonics, said: “The number of people suffering from cardiovascular diseases has risen by 93% over the past 25 years and now impacts an estimated 550 million patients worldwide. Many of these people will die or suffer poor health outcomes because the tools we have to diagnose them simply aren’t good enough. Our solution can make a real difference because, not only does it vastly improve the accuracy of testing for cardiovascular disease, but it is also much less invasive and simpler to use. This will substantially reduce costs and open the door to many more people being tested much more regularly.”
Laurens Weers, CFO of PhotonDelta, said: “Amazec has leveraged the power of photonics to create a device that can make a profound impact on the world. Cardiovascular disease is one of the biggest health challenges we face and better diagnosis can be the key to saving millions of lives. We’re very proud to be a part of Amazec’s journey – we believe it has the capacity to become one of Europe’s most important medtechs and a standard bearer for a new generation of photonics-based technology.”
