Pathfinder Medical

Pathfinder Medical is a medical device company, spun out of Imperial College in 2014, which is developing an electronic catheter guidance technology that enables completely new types of endovascular procedures to be performed. Pathfinder Medical is developing a novel electronic guidance system that will enable clinicians to connect blood vessels in a minimally invasive way. This platform technology has a variety of clinical applications such as bypassing peripheral blockages and in vascular access creation for dialysis patients, which represents a £1.6b yearly market. Clinical Need Diabetes and high blood pressure are the most prevalent causes of kidney disease. Worldwide 3.4 million patients have end stage kidney disease and require their blood to be routinely filtered externally through haemodialysis. In US, the number of patients with kidney failure grows by 5% annually. In addition to renal failure, diabetes and high blood pressure are also major causes for peripheral arterial disease with 200 million patients globally. The most severe manifestation of the disease affects up to 30 million patients, with almost half of them at risk for amputation in the first year. Open surgery is the current standard for preparing patients for dialysis and bypassing blocked peripheral arteries. In both cases, blood vessels are connected to form either a short circuit to form a vascular access site for dialysis (AV fistulas) or bypass a blockage in a vessel. High failure rates (approximately 50%) in both cases present a serious danger to life and require repeat procedures (as many as 3.4 per patient year for dialysis patients) which cost over $4.6 billion in the US.