By Tamara Mathias
(Reuters) – NeuroPace Inc said on Tuesday it raised $74 million in equity funding as the medical device maker looks to rapidly expand commercialization of its device to treat epileptic seizures.
The round of funding, led by the KCK Group and OrbiMed Advisors, is likely to be the Mountain View-based company’s last as it plans to go public.
“Our strategy is to take the company public,” Chief Executive Frank Fischer told Reuters, hinting at a possible IPO by the second half of 2019.
Once implanted in the skull, NeuroPace’s RNS System constantly monitors brain waves, identifying and disrupting unusual activity that may trigger seizures.
At least 3.4 million people in the United States suffer from epilepsy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The company’s RNS System was approved in 2013 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
NeuroPace, which estimates about 450 patients will be implanted with the device this year, hopes to double that number in 2018.
Patients can also download data gathered by the RNS System, which can be studied by physicians to aid treatment by, for example, identifying the time of day a patient might be most susceptible to a seizure.
This feature could offer the medical community greater understanding of a little-understood disease whose past treatments included animal sacrifice and exorcism.
(Reporting by Tamara Mathias in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)