Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Nexus Medical Partners funds mobile medical carts

By Mass High Tech Staff

Quincy-based Nexus Medical Partners has provided an undisclosed amount of funding to South Carolina-based Sabal Medical Inc., a maker of mobile medication cabinets.

The funding is the second tranche of the company’s first round of funding, announced in February. Other investors include Nexus Medical Partners’ German affiliate Medicis Nexus Partners GmbH of Munich. According to a February story in PE Week, the initial investment in the company was $2.68 million.

Sabal Medical has developed a mobile cart for use in hospitals to track and dispense medications at a patient’s bedside. The cart combines electronically controlled physical access to patient-specific or medication-specific storage containers, as well as electronic integration to a pharmacy or administration system. By making the unit mobile, the device can eliminate unnecessary trips to the medicine cabinet and electronically provide an up-to-the-minute audit trail, according to company documents.

Nexus Medical is a life-sciences focused fund launched out of New England Partners in 1996 by Edwin Snape, John Rousseau, and Thomas Hancock. The firm’s portfolio includes local companies such as Cambridge-based Biopure Corp. and Curis Inc., Holliston-based Harvard Bioscience Inc., Wilmington-based OmniSonics Medical Technologies Inc. and Chelmsford-based Magellan Biosciences Inc.

Originally founded in Seattle in 2006, Sabal Medical was coaxed to South Carolina through funding from SC Launch, an economic development program of the South Carolina Research Authority.