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Medtech startup Oracle raises capital, accepted into JLABS and Wave

Margie Manning

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A prototype of the insertable cardiac monitor being developed by Oracle Health. File photo.

Oracle Health, a Safety Harbor company that plans to use technology to prevent heart failure hospitalizations, has raised $107,000 in a capital offering.

Jae Bang, founder and CEO, Oracle Health

The company plans to continue seeking financial backing and hopes to get as much as $1 million, said Jae Bang, founder and CEO.

The capital raise is one of several recent accomplishments for Oracle Health. In November, the company was accepted into JLABS at Texas Medical Center in Houston. JLABS is part of Johnson & Johnson’s Innovation division, and provides an infrastructure and resources for more than 300 emerging life science companies. Most of the companies accepted into JLABS are older and more developed than Oracle, said Bang, who plans to spend one week each month at the facility.

Oracle also was accepted into Tampa Bay Wave’s accelerator, but has deferred participation until the spring, Bang said.

Oracle is developing a tiny insertable cardiac monitor that can be placed just under the skin during a short procedure in a physician’s office. The device would constantly monitor heart sounds and rhythms, and send the information to a cloud-based platform where it can be analyzed with artificial intelligence and machine learning. Cardiologists then would have actionable data to treat patients.


Related story: Local tech company takes on heart failure with new monitor


More than 1.1 million people are hospitalized in the United States each year for heart failure, with an average length of stay of five days in the hospital. Total medical costs for heart failure are projected to increase to $70 billion by 2030, according to Abbott Laboratories.

“The market is huge and patients are suffering … Everyone is going after that space,” said Bang, whose professional experience includes both clinical and business operations at companies developing medical devices.

The most common treatments are surgery and wearable devices. Not everyone can tolerate surgery. Wearables can be inaccurate and compliance can be difficult.

Oracle’s insertable device is still just a prototype, so Bang is testing the technology in a wearable version. As part of a research agreement with the University of Maastrich in the Netherlands, patients will be tested in a hospital setting once a month for six months and checked for trending changes in heart sounds and rhythms, with physicians measuring a baseline and looking for trends after exercise.

The new funding will be used for the technology test, as well as hardware architecture and the Food and Drug Administration 510k regulatory approval process.

Oracle earlier raised $110,000. Just under half of that funding, $50,000, was from ZeroTo510, a Memphis-based accelerator for medical device startups, where Bang was part of the summer 2019 cohort. The rest came from angel investors.

Oracle’s most recent capital was raised through crowdfunding.

Bang had a chance to mingle with potential investors when he was invited to attend the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference last week in San Francisco. The conference is considered the largest and most informative healthcare investment symposium in the industry.

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