Visit orginal source website here

These links are provided for your convenience. They do not imply that the organization endorses or supports those organizations, the content of their pages, or their products or services in any way. No responsibility is assumed by IntelliDx, Inc for the contents of their pages.
Intellix Inc will not be able to deal with any queries arising from these external websites - please contact the provider of the website.

Our Team

Funding: Venture-backed by HLM Venture Partners, 3i Ventures, Giza Ventures, Ascend Ventures, Aurum Ventures, Sequel Venture Partners and Hunt BioVentures
With a new name, a new location and $21.5 million in fresh funding, IntelliDx Inc. aims to automate a critical blood test now done repeatedly by hand in hospital intensive care units.
The Santa Clara-based company’s product, Optimus, uses electro-chemical sensor technology to automatically measure blood glucose levels in ICU patients with hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar.
Sustained high blood glucose levels can increase chances of complications and cause lengthier hospital stays. Intravenous insulin drip therapy is used to control this condition, and hourly glucose measurements are required to fine-tune insulin dosage. The testing is done primarily manually by nurses at the bedside, using a conventional finger-stick test.
“We want to replace the nurse by developing an automated version of this,” says the company’s CEO and President Gary Stroy.
IntelliDx announced March 19 that it raised $21.5 million in Series D preferred stock financing in its first formal institutional funding. The company emerged in the last year from the remains of the defunct company, Glucon Inc.
The company was started in Colorado. Stroy, who has founded seven medical device companies, helped bring IntelliDx to Silicon Valley. “This is a much better climate in terms of investors and talent to do something cutting edge in medicine,” says Stroy, who lives in San Jose.
The practice of intensive insulin therapy to achieve tight gylcemic control was recognized in a 2001 study in the New England Journal of Medicine that documented how it can reduce mortality and morbidity. Since the study, Stroy says ICUs now place a higher importance on normalizing blood glucose.
The practice can be expensive, Stroy says, and can interfere with normal workflow and patient care.
“It costs hospitals $20 to $30 every time to do a test. It’s life or death critical,” he says. “The need has been to automate that process. No one has been able to do it. We hope to be the first company to market an automated blood glucose monitor used in ICUs.”
The Optimus device is about the size of any hospital bedside patient monitor. It draws tiny blood samples from a patient’s intravenous lines and analyzes them at programmed intervals. It eliminates the finger-stick test. The system is efficient, accurate, painless and requires little time from nursing staff, Reichert says.
IntelliDx estimates the market for the product could be as much as $3 billion worldwide, with $1.5 billion of that in the United States. A study by investment firm William Blair & Co., on the other hand, anticipates a $400 million market.
The instrument would cost about $5,000 up front, and then $150 to $200 for a day’s worth of testing.
Stroy says it’s too soon to tell what the company’s exit will be. He anticipates continuing product development, getting it approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in about a year and then launching into the marketplace.
IntelliDx, which owns the patents, could market the device but have it made by a third party vendor such as Flextronics International. Stroy says there are several likely companies that could acquire IntelliDx, including Cardinal Health, Edwards Lifesciences LLC, Medtronic Inc. and Hospira Inc.
Pat Reardon, a registered nurse who is clinical manager of the critical care unit at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, says development of automated “tight glucose monitoring” technology in acute hospitalized patients has been talked about for the past few years.
“The ability to automate glucose control is future thinking — on the cusp of reality,” she says.
She adds there are a variety of biomedical equipment companies in research and development of such bedside technology. The equipment’s impact is that nurses and lab phlebotomy staff would cease serially redrawing patient blood samples for detection of high or low glucose levels. Through an access catheter, the glucose readings would be either drawn at specific intervals or on a continuous basis, depending on equipment-design features.
Precision patient care technology for tight glucose monitoring in an acute environment would maintain blood sugar levels within certain “normal” ranges, Reardon says, which has been shown to result in fewer complications and less morbidity and mortality among patients — in particular, diabetic populations. The hospital is watching the technology before making a decision related to an equipment purchase.

Lisa Sibley can be reached at (408) 299-1841 or lsibley@bizjournals.com