Sonex Health, Inc., an emerging growth company which is innovating office-based treatment of such extremity conditions as carpal tunnel syndrome and much more, has closed on a Series B financing, raising a total of $40 million.
Sonex Health Closes on $40 Million Financing
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Management plans to use the funds to grow sales and marketing of its devices that use ultrasound guidance to safely and effectively treat patients suffering from the debilitating pain caused by carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and trigger finger (TF) and allow those patients to rapidly return to normal activities.
One doctor, Dr. James Watt, whose Fort Walton Beach, Florida, practice is based on treating patients with upper extremity (fingertips to shoulders) complaints, has deployed the Sonex procedure in more than 150 cases. “Once I started doing it, it was a no-brainer because my patients were doing better and healing quicker,” he said.
Dr. Watt typically sees his Sonex-treated patients three days post-procedure, and noticed they were getting back to their activities at a faster rate than patients treated with the traditional open procedure.
“With a traditional, surgical approach, I’d see patients even eight- or 10-days post-op, and they hated their scar and were still in some pain,” said Dr. Watt. “Sometimes they’d still feel sore six weeks later. That’s not been the case with my carpal tunnel release using ultrasound guidance. A tiny scar, if any, and very little down time.” He notes that he rarely, if ever, has to see the patients again who’ve undergone the ultrasound-guided approach.
Not every patient will opt for the Sonex approach, mostly, according to Dr. Watt, because they don’t want to be awake during the procedure.
“Those patients who opt for general anesthesia,” Watt said, “have to undergo additional medical clearances, arrange for transportation, endure stitches, and take time to heal before they resume their activities. These are patients who can barely handle the physical exam in the office. Patients who opt for ultrasound are glad they can drive themselves to the procedure and get back to activities quickly and without stitches.”
Founded by Mayo Clinic Physicians
Sonex was founded in 2014 when Mayo Clinic physicians, Darryl Barnes, M.D. and Jay Smith, M.D. teamed up with business operations expert, Aaron Keenan to develop and bring to market safer, more effective procedures (read “MIS”) to common orthopedic conditions.
The team’s first prototype was UltraGuideCTR™, for office-based carpal tunnel release using ultrasound guidance.
Recently, Sonex Health added Meerkat Technology® which, the company claims, can speed up patient recovery, improve the overall patient experience and lower costs.
KCK Leads Round
KCK MedTech is an eight-year-old venture capital investment fund based in Campbell, California. The firm primarily invests across the healthtech and medtech sectors and has made 12 investments and exited 2.
KCK led both of Sonex’s Series A and Series B financings.
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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