In a recent Series B fundraising round, medical AI firm AITRICS raised 27.1 billion won ($20.1 million). Premier Partners, BNH Investment, BSK Investment, Bonum Investment, DS Investment & Securities, Ulmers Investment, HB Investment, Shinyoung Securities, and HRZ were among the new and current investors that attended the funding event.

This is in addition to the $2.6 million ($3.5 billion) it raised in 2021 during a pre-Series B financing. The business has raised 38.1 billion won ($28 million) in total to date.

ACTUALLY, IT DOES

Established in 2016, AITRICS provides its flagship medical software, Vital Care, utilizing artificial intelligence to forecast the probability of patient decline. It extracts 19 different forms of information from electronic medical records (EMRs), such as the patient’s age, state of consciousness, six vital signs, and the results of 11 blood tests, to predict early warning signals of infection, cardiac arrest, or death.

PURPOSE OF IT

The company’s international expansion will be built on gaining approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, which will be partially funded by the investment round’s proceeds. New items will also be introduced with the help of the funding.

Using the database of a private hospital system, AITRICS and Cleveland Clinic collaborated in 2020 to validate Vital Care and improve the system’s ability to identify patient decline. This was AITRICS’s first venture into the US market.

“Through this investment, the company will further strengthen medical AI research by expanding its professional workforce, and seek to continue the company’s growth by pioneering new pipelines,” stated Gwang-Jun Kim, the company’s chief executive officer

THE MAJOR TREND

In 2022, AITRICS was approved for Vital Care by the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS). Early in the year, the MFDS approved it as an innovative medical device maker, offering it exemptions from some data requirements and support for quick commercialization.

Currently, over 40 hospitals in South Korea use Vital Care, including Gangnam Severance Hospital and the Good Hospitals of the Eunseong Medical Foundation.

In an effort to publish study findings and leverage its artificial intelligence software to enhance each hospital’s medical offerings, AITRICS announced cooperative research agreements with Korea University Anam Hospital and Chung-Ang University Hospital this year. The largest hospital in the nation, Asan Medical Center, and the company have a research collaboration that includes clinical testing of Vital Care utilizing Asan’s data and the development of diagnostic technology for patients in critical condition.

Additionally, it recently partnered with Philips Korea to provide AI-based CDSS solutions for ICUs in an effort to raise survival rates for patients.

In other relevant news, in November, a Series C funding round totaling $84 million was raised by the American diagnostics company Cytovale, which also provides a test for early sepsis detection.