The folks at LifeScience Alley have embarked on an admirable project, trying to quantify the amount of investment in health and medical device companies Minnesota each quarter.
Their data for the second quarter of 2014 shows that investment in diagnostics, medical device, health IT, pharmaceuticals and other healthcare firms rose 65 percent compared to a year earlier, and 46 percent compared to the first quarter. That includes venture capital, angel funding and investment in small firms by large companies.
More than half of the 34 companies raising money are in non-medical device industries, but medical device firms accounted for the lion's share of the dollars.
The medical device numbers were driven by major deals at Plymouth-based Holaira, which raised $42 million to pave the way for a European clinical trial of the company's catheter-based system to treat obstructive lung disease, and Maple Grove-based Inspire Medical, which raised $40 million to commercialize its sleep apnea therapy.
However, 71 percent of the deals in the second quarter were under $1 million, according to LifeScience Alley.
