Startup HistoSonics raises $54M, plans to expand operations in Twin Cities.
Medical robotics startup HistoSonics and its Minnesota-based executive team announced a $54 million Series C fundraising round with backers including proton-beam therapy maker Varian Medical Systems and Dr. Fred Moll, founder of the world’s largest medical-robot company, Intuitive Surgical.
HistoSonics is designing and testing a cancer-killing machine that combines robotics, real-time imaging and a novel energy source into a system that can liquefy and destroy cancer cells inside the body using focused acoustic energy.
HistoSonics has strong Midwestern roots. HistoSonics’ CEO, Mike Blue, lives in the Minneapolis area and is a former sales vice president with Plymouth’s super Dimension, now owned by Medtronic. HistoSonics also has executives in operations, R & D and finance who live in the Twin Cities. The company is headquartered in Michigan, and is based on a technique called histotripsy, invented at the University of Michigan. One of the major investors in this latest funding round was the State of Wisconsin Investment Board.
“HistoSonics plans to expand their operations in the Minneapolis area, where a wealth of med tech engineering and marketing talent resides, while maintaining our presence in Ann Arbor where our R & D has strong roots,” Josh King, vice president of marketing for HistoSonics, said in an e-mail Monday.
HistoSonic’s key therapy, which it calls robotically assisted sonic therapy, “will offer transformative change for both patients and physicians and will help overcome many of the major limitations and side effects of today’s cancer therapies,” Blue said in a news release. “It has also shown great promise to work synergistically with other therapies and platforms, such as drug and immunotherapy, a big focus of our preclinical work, as well as with other surgical robotic platforms.”
By Joe Carlson | Star Tribune
Image Credit: HistoSonics
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