Cala Health secures $50M to market its tremor-treating wearable

To help bring its nerve-stimulating wearable to market, Cala Health collected $50 million that it also plans to use to expand its therapeutic pipeline.

The series C round saw new investments from Novartis, Baird Capital, LifeSci Venture Partners, TriVentures and others. Cala’s previous backers also returned, including Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Lux Capital, Lightstone Ventures, Action Potential Venture Capital, GV and dRx Capital, a joint investment company between Novartis and Qualcomm.

“This financing follows exciting momentum from the past year, including receiving de novo clearance from the Food and Drug Administration for our therapy for essential tremor and announcing a licensing agreement and ongoing collaboration with Partners HealthCare Innovation and its affiliate, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH),” Cala founder and CEO Kate Rosenbluth said in a statement.

Currently, Cala is prepping for a limited release of its prescription Cala Trio device for essential hand tremors, a chronic nerve disorder that can cause uncontrollable shaking. The company aims to serve as a direct distributor to patients.

RELATED: Bioelectronics developer Cala Health partners up with MGH against chronic diseases

This past March, Cala launched its collaboration with MGH and Partners HealthCare, the hospital’s intellectual property management arm, to explore the brain’s reactions to chronic pain and different forms of neural stimulation.

The end goal is to build a platform for noninvasive bioelectric treatments for multiple chronic conditions. To start, the company licensed technologies aimed at the vagus nerve, as well as stimulation that syncs up with a person’s breath to treat high blood pressure.