POC Medical Raises $1.1 Million In Pre-Series A Funding
Livermore, California (PRWEB) December 22, 2014 -- POC Medical, a California-based company that provides point-of-care services to patients around the globe, recently closed more than $1.1 million in funding. The funds will be used for industrial design, as well as to register and launch the product in India and China, two areas where the need is the greatest.
Short for Point of Care, POC Medical takes the necessary tools to a patient’s location, allowing care to be administered on site. Currently, the company is focusing its efforts on patients in emerging economies where care is often unavailable. With its initial funding, POC Medical plans to implement breast cancer screenings in India and China, where the issue is ten times larger than it is in the US.
POC Medical has already been able to develop the infrastructure for its product using raised funds. Over the next year, the company hopes to raise an additional $10 million in funding to finalize its industrial design, build an inventory, start distribution channels, and set up operations in India and China.
Chairman and CEO Sanjeev Saxena returned to the US after heading up a biotech company in India, where he noticed the dire need for high-quality medical care. As healthcare costs across the world have skyrocketed, Saxena has noticed many medical innovations are far too expensive for non-wealthy consumers to access. For that reason, much of the world has been unable to benefit from advancements in healthcare, such as early cancer detection. By providing on-site healthcare in these areas, POC Medical hopes to save lives.
Saxena notes that the healthcare field is changing to a more data-driven approach. Instead of diagnosing a patient based solely on symptoms, medical professionals are beginning to leverage the data now available to make more accurate diagnoses. By expanding healthcare to emerging economies, POC Medical will be able to gather information that could be used to learn more about diseases and treatments.
“The name of the game has changed to quick diagnosis and requirement for the diagnostic data in real time,” Saxena explains. “Hence, the medical space is ready for complete transformation. At POC Medical Systems, we have developed a technology platform that gives physicians and caretakers data in a matter of minutes rather than days, allowing for diagnosis to be done when you come to see a physician and a treatment suggested based on this diagnostic data. With this technology, we can pretty much transform the medical space.”
Once POC Medical has the financing necessary to start operations in China and India, the company plans to make the move. This will open opportunities for workers in these areas, who can be hired at a fraction of the cost of their US counterparts. As more businesses relocate to India, Saxena has noticed an improvement in local economies, who can now put their high-demand skills like software programming to use. A rising middle class brings an even greater demand for access to healthcare.
The POC Medical team continues to seek the funding necessary to tackle the next steps in its plans. With more than 1.38 million new cases of breast cancer diagnosed each year, POC Medical hopes to be able to diagnose more patients early, while treatment is most effective, and reduce the number of deaths due to breast cancer significantly. There is over 1.6 Billion women who need to be screened and only 50 million are screened today of which over 500,000 women are known to die. Hence the reality is over 50 million women may actually have breast cancer and over 16 million may die as a result of it. The statistics are stark and something needs to be done and POC Medical is doing just that.
Sanjeev Saxena, POC Medical, http://www.pocmedicalsystems.com, +1 (925) 350-6200, [email protected]
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