A new medical device company in Kalamazoo plans to begin building a business around a product acquired from Stryker Corp. to treat a painful and potentially life-threatening condition.
Critical Care Diagnostics Inc.’s production of the STIC Pressure Monitor should begin later this year at contract manufacturer Keystone Solutions Group in Kalamazoo. The device can diagnose and treat acute and chronic compartment syndrome, a condition that typically results from severe injury where pressure in the muscles constricts blood flow.
CEO Kevin McLeod started the company with Plymouth Growth Partners, an Ann Arbor-based investment firm that invests in growth-stage companies in Great Lakes states. The firm has more than $150 million under management in its portfolio.
Plymouth Growth Partners reached out to McLeod a little more than a year ago about acquiring the STIC Monitor, a 30-year-old diagnostic product line. The deal closed in January, McLeod said.
Critical Care Diagnostics, also known as C2Dx, is moving toward production and wants to extend the monitor into adjacent medical uses such orthopedic trauma and sports medicine “and build this company from that model,” McLeod said.
The partners involved with McLeod in CD2x have more than 100 years of combined experience in medical device operations, R&D, marketing and quality assurance.
“We want to build up the product line just like we have in the past with our former companies,” said McLeod, who worked at Kalamazoo-based Stryker from 1992 to 2010 and was product manager for the STIC Monitor.
“Ultimately, what we’re looking for is spinouts where companies have a product that doesn’t fit their portfolio any longer and we can add it to ours,” McLeod said. “Long term, we’re looking for potential acquisitions, and short term building this company out with a robust product portfolio.”
C2Dx will consider acquiring new medical device products in their early stages of development. The company presently has four possible targets “that we are interested in looking at,” three of which are next-generation diagnostic devices under development for compartment syndrome.
The condition has been receiving renewed attention as the population ages and “people are determined to stay active into their later years of life,” McLeod said. “Timely diagnosis and intervention can avoid unnecessary and expensive procedures.”
As well, C2Dx will consider investing in medical devices to treat traumatic brain injuries or deep vein thrombosis, which occurs when a blood clot forms in one or more of the deep veins in the body, typically in the legs.
McLeod’s experience includes forming and running Impact Athletic, a producer of a line of athletic training tables he sold in October 2016 to Rogers Athletic Inc., a company based in Farwell, north of Mt. Pleasant. He also was a co-managing partner at Novus Biotechnology Fund 1 LP, a small venture capital fund, and once worked at Southwest Michigan First.
