Luminate Medical, an Irish medical device startup, which develops medical devices to eliminate the side effects of cancer treatment, has nabbed $5 million in funding. The investment comes in grant financing and a seed round investment. Investors in the round include Elkstone Capital (which backed Laka and Flipdish), SciFounders, and Faber, a Lisbon-based fund.
Clinical trials
Luminate Medical plans to use the funds to complete first in-patient clinical trials of its Lily device in Europe and the US in 2022 and 2023. Also, it is in plans to expand its R&D team with roles in biomedical engineering, finite element analysis and product design. Clinical trial sites for the product include the company’s home in Galway, Ireland. Based on this clinical data, the company anticipates engaging with the FDA for product clearance in 2023.
Currently, the company is recruiting R&D Engineers to join the team at its Galway office, and anticipates expanding its US workforce in late 2023 as it prepares for US regulatory clearance.
“Our mission is to revolutionise the user experience of healthcare. We do that by building medical devices with a patient-first approach, and focusing on the needs that truly matter to patients. This funding round will allow us to complete first in patient clinical trials of our innovative Lily Device, and accelerate our path to market launch and patient impact in 2024,” said Barbara Oliveira, CTO and Co-Founder of Luminate Medical.
Sofia Santos, Partner at Faber said, “Our conviction in Luminate Medical’s mission comes from the way the team envisions the use of data to solve a problem that has been ignored by the traditional medical device industry. Improving cancer patients’ quality of life and care along their treatment journey is an underestimated field where advanced technological development can add a lot of value.”
Lily: All you need to know
Luminate Medical was founded in 2018 by Aaron Hannon, Dr Barbara Oliveira and Professor Martin O’Halloran when they were working as medical device researchers at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Backed by Y Combinator in 2021, the company develops medical devices, which prevent the side effects of cancer treatment, starting with a unique device to prevent hair loss caused by chemotherapy.
Its flagship device – Lily is the world’s first portable, comfortable and effective solution to prevent hair loss caused by chemotherapy. It is a portable head-covering device, which prevents the delivery of chemotherapy drugs to the hair follicles in a comfortable and repeatable way. Current devices to prevent hair loss use scalp cooling therapy, which requires patients to remain in clinic for hours after treatment under extreme cold temperatures to prevent chemotherapy from attacking the hair follicles.
Luminate Medical has developed and patented a novel compression therapy approach, which will enable a portable, comfortable and effective solution to prevent hair loss. The Lily device enables patients to purchase and access hair loss treatment directly and will eliminate the requirement for patients to remain in clinic after chemotherapy treatment.
