Singapore-based medical technology startup AWAK Technologies recently announced that it had secured US$40 million in one of Southeast Asia’s largest medtech funding round co-led by VIckers Ventures Partners, an international early-stage venture capital firm which counts life sciences and biotechnology as part of its portfolio of investments, and a major medical products firm. The oversubscribed fundraise also saw the participation of both new and existing investors, chief among them SEEDS Capital and Advanced MedTech, with shares being subscribed by the participating investors. The latest funding secured by the medtech company brings its total sum of money raised thus far to just over US$60 million.
According to AWAK Technologies, the freshly acquired funds will enable the medtech startup to fulfill several purposes for its proprietary AWAK Peritoneal Dialysis (AWAK PD) device; to further enhance and improve the company’s research and development capabilities, fully prepare the portable device for undergoing important clinical trials and studies, and to ensure that the product is up-to-grade for manufacturing and production and is commercially viable. The AWAK Peritoneal Dialysis device is a wearable and highly portable device that is revolutionizing hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis by enabling patients to customise their therapy to suit their lifestyle needs instead of having to adapt their schedule around their treatment, and without the need for medical supervision to administer. The device, which weighs less than 2 kilograms, requires only 2 liters of peritoneal dialysis solution per day and provides 12 to 16 liters of dialysate flow for a single therapy session of 6 to 8 hours. A single therapy session per day accompanied by a clinician-prescribed long dwell is sufficient for clearing the patient’s body of uremic toxins. One of the device’s main strengths is that it gives patients the choice of using the miniature device at their convenience and on their own terms, whether at day or at night.
AWAK PD successfully underwent a first-in-human clinical trial last year where it was awarded recognition by America’s US Food and Drug Administration with a Breakthrough Device Designation, which denotes that the device is ready to be fast tracked for development, assessment and review. The results from AWAK PD’s clinical trial conducted last year was able to reliably demonstrate that the device was able to treat patients without any serious side effects, and that it was able to clear toxins and waste material from the patients’ blood successfully. The company is now at a crucial crossroads as it gears up to roll out an important study for its AWK PD device in the next year and is in negotiations with several regulatory bodies from around the world to properly traverse the regulatory landscape.
Suresha Venkataraya, chief executive officer at Awak Technologies, says that the medtech company is pleased to have the committed support of renowned and prestigious investors during this significant point of AWAK’s development. Suresha added that the startup will fully leverage on the investors’ experience and counsel as it seeks to further innovate and disrupt the health industry in its dialysis treatment with its AWAK PD device, which is a miniature portable device that affords patients much comfort and convenience as well as reducing therapy times and medical costs for both patients and healthcare providers.
Singapore-based medtech startup AWAK Technologies certainly has the potential to revolutionize the way end-stage kidney diseases are treated with its wearable and convenient AWAK PD device. As it moves forward with its plans to prepare the product for another clinical study and proper manufacturing and commercialization, AWAK Technologies is hoping to one day make the treatment of end-stage kidney disease a convenient, affordable matter for patients all over the world.
