Genetesis founder and CEO Peeyush Shrivastava describes the company as an imaging technology platform focused on delivering “the most patient-centric and cost effective solution for identifying ischemic heart disease.” On Thursday, the company received an influx of cash to help it achieve that objective. Genetesis closed a $17.5 million Series C funding round, bringing its total funding to date to more than $40 million.

The round was led by Mithril Capital with participation from Cercano Management, JobsOhio Growth Capital, Ohio Innovation Fund and CincyTech.

Founded in 2013, Genetesis is seeking to give providers a better way to catch myocardial ischemia — which occurs when blood flow to the heart is reduced and the heart muscle is blocked from receiving the oxygen it needs. Ischemic heart disease is the largest killer of both men and women globally, Shrivastava pointed out in an interview.

“The challenge with ischemia is that it’s not created equally,” he said. “It shows up very differently in women than it does in men. It shows up differently when you have blocked coronary arteries versus when you have no obstructive coronary arteries. It’s very heterogeneous, which makes it really difficult to deliver robust care from a cost effectiveness standpoint and from a patient centric standpoint.”

In its effort to equalize ischemia care, Genetesis built a noninvasive tool that leverages a science called magnetocardiography (MCG), which measures the magnetic fields produced by the heart’s electrical currents.

“MCG has been around since the late 60s, but we really use contemporary technologies to remaster it and package it in a way that’s clinically and commercially viable,” Shrivastava said.

Genetesis does this by bringing MCG together with artificial intelligence and cloud computing, according to Shrivastava. He said the company’s test — which requires no pharmaceuticals or radiation — can come to a “fairly definitive” identification of ischemic heart disease in less than five minutes.

The company anticipates it will obtain FDA approval and launch the product early next year. Genetesis plans to sell the test to both the hospital emergency room market as well as private cardiologist offices, Shrivastava said. 

A major portion of the funds Genetesis raised will go toward funding clinical trials — there are some that the company is wrapping up and others that are launching. The largest is the ACCMED trial, which includes participation from Cleveland Clinic, Ascension, Beaumont Health and Wake Forest Baptist Health. The 18-month trial is slated to end in October. The company is also planning to conduct more trials, one of which being a trial focused on identifying ischemia in patients with no obstructive coronary arteries, according to Shrivastava.

Genetesis’ primary competitor is “anyone who’s building stress tests,” Shrivastava declared. He called stress testing “an ineffective paradigm that carries a lot of patient burden” and often lacks accuracy.

In the cardiology field, there has been a push to move away from stress tests and toward coronary coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA), a noninvasive test that uses X-rays, Shrivastava pointed out. As the only company championing the use of MCG to detect ischemic heart disease, he thinks Genetesis can take a complementary role, serving as a “functional and rapid test” alongside coronary CTA.

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