Coventina Healthcare Enterprises, a South Park, PA, firm specializing in therapeutic warming devices, has received $150,000 from The Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse (PLSG), an organization founded in 2001 to grow southwestern Pennsylvania’s life sciences industry.
Coventina recently relocated to the region after acquiring the assets of a Texan company, SeliCor, with an established presence in southwestern Pennsylvania. The most important asset was the SeliTherm System, an FDA-cleared therapeutic warming device with a number of applications, including muscle healing, wound healing, osteoarthritis treatment, pain management, and re-warming of hypothermia victims.
SeliTherm consists of a radio frequency generator and a family of form-fitting garments with helically coiled wires that deliver gentle, deep heating along the body. The process is extremely low-risk and eliminates the need for attended care.
Therapeutic warming means raising the temperature of the tissues 1.0-to-1.6 inches below the surface of the skin to a temperature between 104 and 113 degrees Fahrenheit. The process causes physiological changes to take place in the treated tissues, which can result in pain relief, decreased joint stiffness, increased range of motion, relief from muscle spasms and joint contractures, and accelerated healing of soft-tissue injuries.
The SeliTherm System has been available since 2001, but with the money from PLSG, Coventina will refine the technology platform for a targeted, spring 2008 launch into the sports medicine market.
Earlier this month, PLSG committed $570,000 to MedRespond, Blue Belt Technologies and Biosafe. And in August, the organization announced two other three-way backings. One, for Separation Design Group, ThermalTherapeutics Systems and Applied Computational Technologies, was worth $450,000. And the other was for $350,000, and divided among Falcon Genomics, Glucose Sensing Technologies, and Celsense. Other PLSG investments made over the summer include iNTELOMED, a new cardiovascular diagnostic firm that in July received $100,000, and Cartesia Dx, which received $180,000 that same month.