1st May 2009

A pioneering healthcare company in Nottingham looks set to break into the all-important US market after winning more than £1m in venture capital backing.

Monica Healthcare, at the BioCity business incubator complex, is in the final stages of winning regulatory approval to sell its wireless foetal heart monitor in the USA.

The University of Nottingham spin-out company, run by a team of engineers and researchers, developed a device the size of an i-Pod which can monitor the heartbeat of unborn children by picking up electrical signals.

It is smaller and more portable than ultrasound devices in most hospitals and is being used by a Liverpool hospital to test monitoring by phone of pregnant women sent home after being given drugs to induce birth.

The new money represents the third round of venture capital backing Monica has received since it was launched in 2004 as a spin-out company from research at the University of Nottingham.

The £1.175m of funding combines money from PUK Ventures, the venture capital business of Partnerships UK, the regional venture capital fund managed by Catapult Venture Managers, the University of Nottingham and private investors.

Monica Healthcare's monitor went on sale in January last year and managing director Dr Carl Barratt says sales in the UK and Europe have been in line with expectations. But the company wants to make its mark in the United States, widely seen as the biggest market in the world for healthcare.

Dr Barratt told the Post: "We now need to take the product through the regulatory hurdles to allow us to move into the US and Japanese markets. It has sold well to clinicians from the public and private sectors and we have a distribution network in Europe.

"The US is by far the biggest market in the world. Unlike Europe, it's also a unified market with one set of regulations. It is a big opportunity for us."

Monica Healthcare employs 10 people, but expects to double this during the next year.

Besides managing director Dr Barratt, it is led by research director Dr Barry Hayes-Gill, technical director Dr Jean-Francois Pieri, and marketing director Dr Terry Martin.

The Monica monitor works differently from existing foetal heart monitors.

While they send out an ultrasound signal which is picked up when it bounces back, the Monica monitor picks up the heart's electrical signals.

Because it is portable and small enough to be strapped to people, they are still able to move or even be in a different place from the clinician picking up its signals