Dutch Amazec lands €1.5M for photonics-based heart measurement

Medtech startup Amazec Photonics has secured 1.5 million euros in seed capital from Photondelta for its non-invasive cardiovascular monitoring devices. The money will be used to build ten prototypes and run extensive clinical trials. The technology is projected to hit the market by 2028.

Amazec is the brainchild of Technobis founder Pim Kat, former dean of the Electrical Engineering department at Eindhoven University of Technology Ton Backx and anesthesiologist-intensivist Erik Korsten. Together, they realized that photonics technology developed by Technobis could revolutionize the diagnosis of heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases.

The most common technique to measure cardiac output is called thermodilution, which involves injecting a known volume of cold liquid upstream of the heart and then measuring temperature changes downstream through specialized catheters inserted into the patient. This has several drawbacks including an inability to be used reliably during routine examination, a large variation between measurements, a lack of sensitivity and high costs.

By contrast, Amazec’s solution uses fiber-optics photonics-based technology to measure temperature changes to an unprecedented precision of 0.0001 degrees Celsius (compared to a current accuracy of 0.01 degrees Celsius). The monitoring device is external, so there’s no need to insert catheters. Multiple measurements can be made in real-time, which improves reliability.

“Our solution can make a real difference. Not only does it vastly improve the accuracy of testing for cardiovascular disease, but it’s also much less invasive and simpler to use. This will substantially reduce costs and open the door to many more people being tested much more regularly,” says Kat, CEO of Amazec.

Amazec will begin clinical trials of its device at the Catharina Hospital in Eindhoven this year, with an expansion to three other hospitals planned in 2025.