Caristo Diagnostics Completes Series A Financing and Welcomes New CEO to Advance Ground-Breaking AI Technology for Cardiac Disease Detection
$16 Million Investment Led by Oxford Science Enterprises and Joined by Multiple Institutional Investors
Caristo Diagnostics Limited, a global leader in cardiac and vascular disease diagnostics and risk prediction, announced it has secured a further £13 million (US$16.3 million) to conclude its Series A financing round. Caristo will use the capital to advance its CaRi-Heart® technology, an AI-assisted diagnostics and risk prediction tool, into standards of cardiac care in major global markets.
The investment was led by Oxford Science Enterprises and joined by BGF, Longwall Venture Partners, Oxford Investment Consultants LLP, Oxford University and other investors.
“We are thrilled that five successful institutional investors participated in the financing round which validates the vast clinical and business potential of Caristo’s innovations”, said Oran Muduroglu, Board Chairman of Caristo. “We are equally excited to welcome Frank Cheng as Caristo’s new CEO. Frank led multiple digital health companies during the last twenty years, and most recently was President & CCO of Eyenuk, Inc, a diagnostic company with autonomous AI technology that was FDA-cleared, Medicare-reimbursed, supported by a new Category 1 CPT code, and adopted in eighteen countries. With a portfolio of novel technologies, exceptional clinical results and an experienced management team, Caristo is well positioned to transform healthcare around the world”.
“We invest in companies with the potential to revolutionise healthcare and become global category leaders and that is why we are proud to back the incredible team at Caristo,” said Heather Roxborough, Head of HealthTech at Oxford Science Enterprises and Caristo Board Member. “Caristo continues to make tremendous progress in the delivery of its innovative technology to help healthcare professionals predict and prevent future heart attacks and ultimately save millions of lives around the world. We are thrilled to continue being part of the company’s journey.”
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death globally, taking an estimated 17.9 million lives each year1. Caristo aims to change this statistic through the delivery of its state-of-the-art coronary disease diagnostic technology. CaRi-Heart’s AI algorithms allow trained health professionals to obtain measures of coronary inflammation from routine cardiac computed tomography angiography (CCTA) scans by using Caristo’s Fat Attenuation Index (FAI) technology. The resulting FAI Score measures the risk of cardiac mortality due to coronary inflammation. Additionally, CaRi-Heart provides a long-term cardiac mortality risk by integrating coronary inflammation with standard clinic risk factors and the presence of coronary plaques.
“Caristo has been on an exciting journey since 2018 as the Company turned a scientific idea into a validated clinical offering, protected our intellectual property, published impressive results in leading peer-reviewed medical journals, and secured initial regulatory approvals”, said Frank Cheng, Caristo CEO and Board Member. “Our Series A fundraise will accelerate Caristo’s growth in our existing UK and EU markets, while we lay solid foundations for U.S. market entry”.
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About Oxford Science Enterprises
Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE) is an independent, billion-pound investment company, created in 2015 to found, fund and build transformational businesses via its unique partnership with the University of Oxford, the world’s #1 research university. This partnership enables OSE to work with the brightest academic minds tackling the world’s toughest challenges and guarantees unrivalled access to their scientific research. In collaboration with its global network of entrepreneurs and advisers, OSE goes well beyond funding to shape and nurture these complex ideas into successful businesses. Actively focused on a core portfolio of around 40 companies spanning three high-growth, high-impact sectors – Life Sciences, Health Tech, and Deep Tech – the company adopts a flexible, long-term investment approach, recognising the path from ground-breaking research to global markets takes time and resilience. To date, OSE has invested £0.5 billion in over 80 ambitious companies built on Oxford science.
About Caristo Diagnostics Limited
Caristo Diagnostics Limited is a global leader in cardiac and vascular disease diagnostics and risk prediction. Founded in 2018 as a spin-out company from the University of Oxford, the world’s #1 research university, Caristo has developed a portfolio of imaging-based and AI-assisted platforms that can be applied to aid the prediction and diagnosis of heart attack, stroke, and diabetes. Caristo was highlighted by Nature in 2020 as one of the most exciting science-based companies to have emerged from academic labs. To-date Caristo has attracted over £23 million in venture capital investment (nearly US$30 million). Find Caristo online on its website, LinkedIn and Twitter.
About the CaRi-Heart® Technology
Named first of “7 Technologies That Could Change Heart Healthcare Forevermore” by the Robb Report, the CaRi-Heart technology is Caristo’s flagship offering which aids coronary artery disease diagnosis with improved risk prediction. It applies advanced AI algorithms to routine cardiac CT scans to visualize and quantify coronary inflammation, which is the previously invisible root cause of the disease. Each patient’s CaRi-Heart Report includes several clinical results: (1) the patient specific Fat Attenuation Index (FAI), a novel and patented biomarker for the measurement of coronary inflammation, which indicates the patient’s risk in % relative to a matched peer group; (2) CaRi-Heart Risk, which assesses the absolute 8-year risk of a fatal heart attack (based on both coronary inflammation status and standard clinical risks factors); and (3) coronary plaque-specific characterization and quantification. The CaRi-Heart Analysis is supported by the CaRi-Heart software, which is cloud-based and agnostic to the type of scanner generating the routine cardiac CT images. The CaRi-Heart technology is CE Mark certified under the latest EU MDR with UKCA marking being received in September 2022. CaRi-Heart is limited to research use in the U.S. before the FDA grants marketing authorization.
Multiple patents underpinning CaRi-Heart technologies have been granted in major jurisdictions around the world. In addition, exceptional validation results showing Cari-Heart’s ability to aid the prediction of heart attacks have been published in leading medical journals including the Lancet, JACC, European Heart Journal, and Cardiovascular Research. CaRi-Heart validation and implementation projects have been supported by multiple UK government grants and awards, including the NHS AI Stage 3 Award for real-world evaluation and implementation of CaRi-Heart care pathway in multiple NHS hospitals. With its deep clinical insights, proven validity and implementation readiness, the CaRi-Heart Analysis Service and the resulting new care pathway can transform cardiac care around the world by aiding in better prediction and prevention of future heart attacks.
