Acarix receives double-digit SEK million investment from Chinese strategic investor Puhua Jingxin to accelerate market introduction

November 7, 2016

Acarix receives double-digit SEK million investment from Chinese strategic investor Puhua Jingxin to accelerate market introduction

Acarix, a Swedish/Danish commercial stage medical device company specializing in non-invasive, non-radiation acoustic detection of Coronary Artery Disease (CAD), today announced that it has received a major strategic investment from the Chinese company Puhua Jingxin Guzhou Health Management Partnership (Puhua Jingxin). The aim of the double-digit million investment is to accelerate market introduction of the already CE-marked CADScor®System.

The CADScor®System combines acoustic detection of turbulent arterial flow and myocardial movement with advanced algorithms in a handheld device to provide a patient specific CAD-score in less than 10 minutes. According to Søren Rysholt Christiansen, CEO of Acarix, the CADScor®System meets a major unmet need: “Coronary Artery Disease affects more than 120 million people worldwide but the current diagnostic pathway, which can rapidly escalate to expensive imaging and invasive coronary angiography, is inefficient”. He continues: “a recent Danish study showed that more than 90% of patients presenting CAD like symptoms to their general practitioner do not have CAD”. With the Acarix CADScor®System Acarix can provide an easy to use non-invasive tool able to rule out CAD with 96% negative predictive value. Christiansen concludes: “this translates into a potential to reduce onward patient referrals by ~50%. – a win-win for patients, payers and physicians.”

The collaboration with Puhua Jingxin willl enhance Acarix’s ongoing market entry strategy which has an initial focus on Germany, UK, Sweden and Denmark. “Following successful completion of a further validation study, we were already on track for reimbursement applications and commercial launch in Q2 2017. We are delighted to partner with Puhua Jingxin – a joint healthcare fund aligning strategic resources from Puhua Healthcare and major pharmaceutical company Zhejiang Jingxin Pharmaceuticals. This new investment will enable us to ramp up both production and our sales organization” continues Christiansen.

Contact:
Søren Rysholt Christiansen, CEO
E-mail: dksrc@acarix.com
Phone: +45 2777 1112

Notes to editors:
Acarix , CADScor®System and cardiac sound measurement
Acarix A/S was established in 2009 as a spin-out company from Coloplast A/S. Since 2010 key investors Seed Capital (DK) and Sunstone Life Science Ventures (DK) have financed the development of the company and supported it towards market introduction. While some founders remain in the company, Acarix has attracted a highly experienced management team who have held senior positions in international medical device companies - CEO Søren Rysholt Christiansen with ELOS Medtech, GN ReSound and Cook Medical. Recently, international senior executives have entered the board of directors as well.

Acarix’s CADScor®System is based on pioneering research at Aalborg University. It has long been known that both cardiac contraction movement and turbulent flow can generate sound. Contraction related sounds are in lower frequency, whereas turbulent sounds in the streaming blood caused by partial obstruction (stenosis) in the coronary arteries are of higher frequencies. The detection of these murmurs is delicate, since the energy of the murmurs is very weak. Detecting and recording the coronary murmurs requires not only an advanced sensor but also means for proper attachment to the skin above the heart to optimize the recorded signal and to avoid external noise.

The Acarix CADScor®System has been designed to be an all-in-one system in the sense that the heart signal will be recorded, processed and displayed as a patient specific score, the CAD-score, on the device screen.
The CADScor®System contains the necessary electronics to instruct professionals during use and guide the patient through the recording periods. The system also contains a docking station for daily qualification of the sensor. Further the system integrates with an adhesive patch for locking the CADScor® sensor to a fixed position above the heart during the recording.

The software embedded in The Acarix CADScor®System ensures that adequate recording conditions are controlled at every examination, whether performing your examinations in a quiet clinical settings or at busy GP clinics, at high altitudes (>95% coverage) or on the move.

The CADScor® System is CE Marked (by TÜV in 2015) and due for commercial launch in 2017.
See more at www.acarix.com
Diagnosing coronary artery disease by sound analysis from coronary stenosis induced turbulent blood flow: diagnostic performance in patients with stable angina pectoris.

Cardiovascular Imaging, Septmber 2015: Winther S, Schmidt SE, Holm NR, Toft E, Struijk JJ, Botker HE, Bottcher M.

Zhejiang Jingxin Pharmaceuticals
Zhejiang Jingxin Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. is a listed pharmaceutical company, integrating R & D, manufacturing and marketing, ranking among the top 100 of the chemical pharmaceutical enterprises in China with current registered capital of 320 million CNY and total assets of 2.9 billion CNY. The company has 2300 staff, headquarters in both Xinchang and Hangzhou and five manufacturing sites. Jingxin attaches great importance to R&D, besides having its own world-class infrastructure for R&D, the company also works closely with institutes and universities to reinforce the commitment to innovative products and is involved with 8 National Key New Products and 9 National Torch Plans.
In the medical device arm of the business, Jingxin currently focuses on medical display instruments, providing complete medical imaging display pathway solutions, covering all medical imaging application areas, including clinical review, diagnostic, consultation center, digitized surgical room and ultrasound, CT, MRI, DR, DSA, DSI, endoscope etc.
Jingxin’s strategy is to accelerate growth through both independent research and development and M&A. In the domestic market, Jingxin acquired a TCM factory in Inner Mongolia in 2007, a bio-medicine company in Beijing in 2011, a comprehensive pharmaceutical company in Guangdong Province in 2013 and an advanced medical devices company in 2015. Internationally, Jingxin set up a joint venture in UK in 2014, invested in a medical device company in Israel in 2015 and took corporate control of a US pharmaceutical company in 2015.

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