Clarix Imagining has raised $10m in funding from Swiss investment firm kineo finance.
The Chicago-headquartered company, already backed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has developed image reconstruction technology, which it is applying to breast cancer imaging.
Clarix Imaging’s volumetric specimen imaging system is a point-of-care 3D imaging platform that provides margin visualisation in breast cancer surgeries. The product, called VSI-360, received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance in 2019. Software installed on the device allows surgeons to visualise tumours in thin slices without other tissues obscuring the margins.
Related: Medical robotics firm Automata picks up £33m funding
Lumpectomy – the surgical procedure to remove only the cancer from the breast as opposed to a mastectomy – can have high rates of second surgeries. Once doctors analyse the removed tissue, the presence of positive margins means there is still cancerous tissue in the breast.
Further surgery is called a re-excision lumpectomy – according to a study, around 25% of women require this. Analysis of the tissue can take up to a week, whereas Clarix Imaging’s device enables real-time assessment of specimens in the operating room.
The global diagnostic imaging market is expected to reach $45.8bn by 2030.