Polarean, a North Carolina-based devicemaker focused on the MRI market, said it plans to raise as much as $4.3 million (£3 million) in a public offering listing on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange.
The company said it expects the IPO launch by the end of this week. Polarean, which will be traded under the symbol POLX, said it plans to use the funds along with money raised from a previous convertible loan note to support clinical trials and eventual FDA approval of its MRI-enhancing technology.
Polarean’s technology would allow current MRI systems to gain improved levels of pulmonary function imaging to aid early diagnosis of pulmonary disease, which currently affects hundreds of millions of people globally. An estimated 174 million people suffer chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which is responsible for 6% of all deaths worldwide each year, the company said.
“We believe we have established a technology that targets a huge unmet medical need to aid the diagnosis of pulmonary diseases and are well positioned to achieve the key milestones we have set out, including for the execution of our Phase III clinical trial in the U.S.,” Richard Hullihen, Polarean’s chief executive, said in a statement.
Polarean’s Phase III trial for its imaging technology is expected to begin in early second-quarter 2018 and is expected to last for about 18 months as it prepares its NDA to the regulatory agency.
The company currently manufactures high performance MRI radio frequency coils that are required components for imaging 129Xe in the MRI system.