The neuromodulation developer Saluda Medical announced that it raised $100 million to help bolster the sales of its closed-loop implant aimed at treating chronic pain.
The company’s Evoke spinal cord stimulator, approved by the FDA in early 2022, is designed to measure nerve activation in real time and automatically make changes when needed to help optimize pain relief while delivering as many as 100 electric pulses per second.
The former Fierce Medtech Fierce 15 winner’s latest financing was led by Redmile Group, and joined by Wellington Management, TPG Life Sciences Innovation, Fidelity Management & Research, Action Potential Venture Capital, T. Rowe Price Associates and Piper Heartland Healthcare Capital.
Saluda estimates that chronic pain impacts about 67 million people in the U.S., and about 20% of the world’s population.
The Minneapolis-based company last year delivered clinical data exploring neurophysiological biomarkers as well as patient-reported outcomes, showing that 98% of patients who responded well to an initial trial procedure went on to record levels of pain relief by the end of the study.
Another abstract, presented in July 2024 at the American Society of Pain and Neuroscience annual conference in Miami, illustrated the relationship between objective dose-response biomarkers with personalized, closed-loop stimulation and the patient’s pain relief.
A previous study, published in The Lancet Neurology in 2020, showed the Evoke device could reduce or eliminate the use of opioid painkillers after one year among 55% of patients, compared to 40% who received traditional spinal cord stimulation.