CTC makes €100k US breakthrough
Telemedicine startup, Cambridge Temperature Concepts (CTC) believes it has made a key breakthrough in the US market following the award of €100k (£85.3k) in funding from Qualcomm.
CTC scooped the cash prize after being picked as the European finalist in San Diego based Qualcomm’s QPrize venture investment competition.
CTC’s DuoFertility product is a wireless fertility monitor which takes body temperature every second to establish when a woman is at her most fertile. The device, which costs £495, has already been launched in Europe.
CEO and founder, Shamus Husheer told us: “Qualcomm see the area of telemedicine as a strategic priority, and recognition from them in this way certainly boosts our profile and credibility in the US.
“The US is one of the largest healthcare markets in the world, with healthcare costs that are astronomical. The massive savings combined with increasing quality of care provided by our technology tick a great number of boxes both in the US and in Europe.
“The award recognises our groundbreaking work in telemedicine - building a home monitoring solution that relays this information to medical experts, and allows them to communicate back to the patient. In the case of DuoFertility, this provides a level of service normally only available inside the best fertility clinics, directly in your home”.
Entrants to the QPrize competition were judged on their “financial viability, product innovation and the strength of management teams”. The judging panel included independent venture capitalists and Qualcomm Ventures investment managers.
As a finalist, CTC will now have the chance to pitch for a further $150k at the US innovation showcase DEMO Spring 2011, taking place between February 27-March 1 in Palm Desert, California.
Husheer said the funds from QPrize will be used for development and commercialisation of both DuoFertility and the underlying physiological monitoring technology.
The firm has recently stepped up its business development activities in the US, having taken part in the Future Health Mission to San Francisco last month. Husheer says CTC is working through the FDA regulatory process in order to sell DuoFertility in the US and is “several months” from completing it.
”However we already have a steady stream of interest from couples in the US wishing to purchase DuoFertility - we even had one lady fly out to the UK specifically to meet our fertility experts and purchase the device”, he said.
Having moved to Cambridge Science Park in 2007 as a two person operation (Husheer and fellow founder, Dr Oriane Chausiaux), CTC has taken on four people in the last three months to grow the team to a total of 15.
Husheer says CTC is “always looking for both excellent technical people as well as support people with a strong empathy for the situation that our customers find themselves in”.
