A Galway based company that makes a device to prevent hair loss and peripheral neuropathy in chemotherapy patients has raised $15m.
The Series A investment in Luminate was led by ARTIS Ventures, with participation from Metaplanet, Lachy Groom and 8VC.
Healthcare executives from companies including Dexcom, as well as SciFounders, Faber and others also took part in the round.
Luminate plans to use the money to continue development of its latest technology through to first-in-patient trials.
It also aims to complete large-scale clinical trials of its first two products in the US, before applying for FDA review and taking them to market.
30 new roles are being created at the Luminate offices in Galway ahead of its US launch in 2025.
"Our mission at Luminate is to deliver every cancer treatment in the patient's home," said Aaron Hannon, CEO and Co-Founder of Luminate.
"In order to make home delivery possible, we need to build tools to prevent side effects that require in-person monitoring, monitor urgent adverse events during treatment, and enable patients to complete infusion procedures alone."
"This funding allows us to take the first step of this vision: showing we can prevent important adverse events like neuropathy in large scale trials and on the market."
The company was founded in 2018 by Aaron Hannon, as well as Dr Barbara Oliveira and Professor Martin O’Halloran when the group were working as medical device researchers at the University of Galway.
The first-in-patient clinical trials of the company’s technologies have showed successful results, it claims.
Luminate is developing a series of technologies to enable at-home cancer treatment to prevent treatment side effects that require in-person monitoring.
Its first product called Lilac is a wearable set of gloves and boots designed to prevent peripheral nerve damage in the hands and feet of cancer
While Lily is a wearable cap-like device designed to be worn during chemotherapy and allows patients to prevent hair loss caused by chemotherapy.
A third product called Lotus, which is in development, is designed to enable at-home administration of low-risk anti-cancer drugs by patients.
"Luminate has an opportunity to significantly reduce the painful side effects cancer patients endure when undergoing chemotherapy treatments," said Austin Walne, Partner at ARTIS Ventures.
"The Luminate team have the potential to unlock value for private practice oncologists across the United States, reduce costs to insurers through at-home care delivery, and create a better experience for patients while they fight to win their battles with cancer."
The latest round of funding brings the University of Galway spin out’s total funding to over $25 million to date.
It previously raised a $2.9m seed round investment led by Elkstone, SciFounders and Faber VC, and received grant funding from Europe’s EIC Accelerator and Enterprise Ireland’s Disruptive Technology Innovation Fund.
