Ceribell rang in a $180.3 million IPO last week, with its public debut on the Nasdaq coming in well above its first pricing goal of about $101 million and its stock price trading up about 47% following the launch.
The company also adopted the "CBLL" ticker, which has hovered around $25, during a dearth of medtech IPOs spanning several quarters. But co-founder and CEO Jane Chao said that dry spell provided some opportunities.
“From Ceribell’s perspective, I think we were really able to show investors the big clinical unmet needs that we are trying to address,” Chao said in an interview. “It's really been about creating a category of neural monitoring and addressing seizures from the start in critical care and beyond.”
“And, I think, because there have been very few medtech IPOs during the past few years, in some way we had the luxury to get to know the investors longer—and investors had the luxury to get to know us, and see the track record we have.”
Ceribell, a former Fierce Medtech Fierce 15 honoree, has been developing a point-of-care electroencephalography platform that combines a disposable, brain-reading headset with artificial-intelligence-powered algorithms that help detect hidden seizures—also known as electrographic status epilepticus, or ESE.
While seizures are commonly associated with epilepsy, they can also follow traumatic brain injuries, strokes, tumors, cardiac arrest and sepsis, as well as while a patient recovers from surgery, and potentially without any convulsive or physical symptoms.
The company also estimates that seizures may affect up to one-third of critical care patients hospitalized for a neurological condition, increasing their risks of permanent brain injury and long-term neurological disability.
“Everybody knows how important it is to get a CT scan for a stroke when every minute counts—but very, very few of the general public, and even some of the physicians, are aware of the urgency and the scale of non-convulsive seizures,” Chao said. “If you look at the total patient population, we’re only about 2% to 3% penetrated. So we have a long way to go, and a big part of that is raising disease awareness.”
That percentage still amounts to the company’s technology being used to care for over 100,000 patients through agreements with more than 500 hospitals, she said—giving Ceribell a rare base to build on when it comes to a medtech deciding when to go public.
The company has also been collecting clinical and economic data, showing reductions in ICU hospital stays compared to traditional EEG systems, linked to its ability to uncover non-convulsive seizures early at the point-of-care.
“We have been also very rigorously planning and making sure our internal operations are ready to meet this moment,” she said. “And the market, generally speaking, seems to have more appetite compared to one or two years ago for a new company to enter the domain.”
The upsized IPO’s proceeds will also help support the company’s research into new EEG indications for its headset, including the detection of delirium and ischemic strokes. But, for the next year or so, the company will be “laser-focused” on reaching more health systems and raising ESE awareness before looking to introduce new products.
“I think in many ways we're partially creating and partially riding these waves,” Chao said. “For the first part, when you think about it, for decades in the ICU we’ve been focused on saving patients from the neck down, by treating heart failure and kidney failure and so on.”
“One of the neuro-intensivists we know said, ‘We manage all these organ failures, and we have protocols for everything but brain failure.’ In the ICU, there’s very few diagnostic tools for the brain. And when you don't have diagnostic tools, it’s even harder to manage the condition. I think this is where we can write this new chapter.”
“The second part is that, now, AI is everywhere,” she said. “But we actually started using AI when we launched the company years ago. Few people were talking about it then, but it was the right tool for us to use.”