Many people who have heart attacks don’t realize that they have heart disease, although it is the United States' biggest cause of death.
The initial cardiovascular imaging services, Cleerly, wants to change this. Similar to how mammograms and colonoscopies detect breast and colon cancer, the company's AI program analyses heart CT scans to identify early-stage coronary artery disease.
Cleerly’s Mission to Detect Heart Disease Early – Overview
According to Doctor James Min, who launched Cleerly in 2017, "most people who will die of heart disease and heart attacks will never experience any symptoms." "We finally introduce screening for heart disease worldwide." Min launched a trial study at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medicine in 2003, eventually contributing to the company's growth.
To indicate that its screen can more precisely find cardiac issues in individuals without disease symptoms than other regular noninvasive methods, like taking blood pressure and cholesterol readings, Cleerly is presently launching a sizable, multi-year clinical research study. Obtaining regulatory confirmation to screen large populations would greatly benefit the company and increase its customer base and revenue.
Investors are very interested because of this outstanding potential. Cleerly announced on Wednesday that it had obtained $106 million in a Series C growth round managed by Insight Partners and included Battery Ventures. The significant capital raise succeeded Cleerly's $223 million Series C, which was arranged by T. Rowe Price and Fidelity just over two years before
A firm that sells off another portion of itself at a price from the previous round is said to be in an extension round. Scott Barclay, a managing director at Insight Partners, claimed that Cleerly's is expanding rapidly enough even though extension rounds frequently show that the startup is not doing well. "Clearly obtains additional capital to finance future growth and multi-site clinical trials by enabling Insight to join a previous round," he said.
Cleerly was delighted to include Insight Partners, one of the top enterprise project investors, in its cap table, even though the company didn't necessarily need more funding because its other backers were crossover companies or healthcare VCs.
Barclay has faith in Cleerly's talents. The company's algorithms for diagnosing symptomatic individuals have already got FDA approval. In October, Medicare approved payment for its plaque analysis test, even though it still needs full FDA permission for general heart screening. Plaque accumulation frequently occurs in heart attacks.
Health insurers and Medicare appear to agree with Cleerly's statement that its AI-driven diagnosis of the CT scan image is less stressful on the body than a coroner or stress test, as evidenced by their agreement to pay for the test.
According to Min, Cleerly has noticed a compound annual growth of more than 100% throughout the four years the company's software has been available on the market. "And now that most payers identify its diagnostic method for about 15 million people who appear with heart problems each year, the company is poised to continue its growth trajectory," he stated.