Clear Guide Medical gets $2M grant to develop tools for pediatrics

Johns Hopkins spinout Clear Guide Medical received a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to apply its imaging tools to pediatrics.
According to a statement, the startup plans to work with Children’s National Medical Center in D.C. The grant is a Small Business Innovation Research award through the NIH Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
The company’s SCENERGY device is offered as an accessory to ultrasound systems, and helps provide imaging and guidance of a needle during medical procedures like biopsies, epidurals and tissue removal.
Working with Children’s National Medical Center, Clear Guide Medical plans to work to adapt its tools for procedures called vessel cannulations, which are “one of the more difficult procedures in pediatrics because of patient size,” the company said in a statement.
“Clear Guide will develop portable, point-of-care needle guidance for physicians and other clinical personnel to enable more successful first-pass needle sticks,” the company said.
It is designing the device to be deployed in facilities including emergency rooms.
Founded in 2010, the Woodberry-based company gained regulatory approval in the U.S. and Europe for SCENERGY and previously closed $1.5 million in Series A funding. The company has raised a total of about $10.6 million, with about half coming through investment and half through grants, according to Executive Vice President Dorothee Heisenberg.