CED Tech Venture profile: Med device startup Promaxo

Promaxo, a medical device startup focusing on portable MRI and other technology, is among the 90-plus companies presenting at the CED Tech Venture Conference. So what’s the Promaxo story?

The firm, led by CEO Amit Vohra,, is “developing and commercializing patented technologies to enable better detection, diagnosis, and treatment of prostate disorders.”

Here’s a profile of the company.

This is the latest in a series of CED Tech Venture profiles offered as part of a partnership between WRAL TechWire and the Council for Entrepreneurial Development.

What is the focus of your business?

Promaxo is a medical device company developing and commercializing an office-based, portable MRI with cellular level spatial resolution as well as real time biopsy and treatment tools for the urology market. Our current focus is on prostate cancer disease management.

What is the problem you are seeking to address?

Prostate cancer management pathway, which incorporates PSA and “blinded biopsies,” is ineffective and fails patients.

In May 2012, the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) in conjunction with the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued a final recommendation against prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-based screening for prostate cancer in asymptomatic men because evidence indicated that the harms of the test outweigh its benefits.

Post PSA screening, the standard of care for prostate cancer diagnosis is a “blinded” 2D biopsy, wherein 12 random biopsy cores are taken from the gland under ultrasound guidance. The procedure is invasive, has extremely low sampling coverage, and its limitations due to a substantial false negative rate are well documented. Moreover, certain areas of the prostate gland [i.e., the anterior gland, transition zone and apex] are known to be under-sampled or not sampled at all at routine non-targeted biopsy and are now increasingly being recognized as areas that may contain clinically significant tumors.

A positive biopsy leads to a treatment protocol, which primarily involves surgical or robotic prostatectomy, radiation therapy or whole gland ablation, leading to quality of life issues such as incontinence, impotence, bowel problems and loss of fertility. These induce immense stress in patients and are a huge cost to the overall healthcare system from a disease management standpoint.

What makes your solution unique?

Promaxo’s solution is a suite of products including high-resolution prostate-specific MR imagers, tools for image-guided biopsy and treatment, and automated software for tissue characterization. Our products deliver:

A cost effective, high resolution and ultrafast scanning MR imager
A compact, energy-saving, office-based solution
Targeted biopsy and focal treatment based on imaging with greater than 30 microns spatial resolution
No unpleasant bio effects and minimal side effects to patients

Why should investors be interested in your firm?

We offer an attractive return on investment model for a 5-person urologist purchasing practice. We are projecting a 20x ROI on a CapEx of 415,000 to our customers.

Investors should be interested because we are promising an attractive and lucrative return on their investment. We have formulated a cap table with post Series B exit scenario to determine returns on investment to our seed as well as A and B round investors. With a conservative $500M exit (only the prostate market), based on comparables in the industry and 11X multiple to our EBITDA in 2021, we offer a 49X ROI to our seed investors, 21X ROI to Series A, and over 10X ROI to our Series B investors.

Our competitive advantages include:

Innovative and validated technologies solving the unmet need of the physicians and patients
Proven and talented management team
Robust and defensible IP portfolio (exclusive license to 17 issued and pending patents)
Clear regulatory road map of 510k and CE Mark
Established reimbursement plan and attractive ROI for the customers

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