Cape Breton medical device maker Halifax Biomedical Inc. has secured a $3 million equity investment to help finance the roll-out of its high-resolution imaging system that allows surgeons to monitor changes in artificial joint replacements and detect implant failure.

Nova Scotia Business Inc. said Friday its venture capital arm has invested $2 million in the company, and that Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation is investing $1 million.

Mabou-based Halifax Biomedical's main product is the roentgen stereophotogrammetric analysis or RSA, which is an X-ray device that allows two simultaneous X-rays to be taken from different angles. It gives a surgeon an immediate and detailed picture of how an implant is taking hold in an orthopaedic patient.

CEO Chad Munro said in an interview the company has sold one device to a major hospital in Chicago and the funds it has received will allow it to get more devices to market and build on its success.

The company aims to install about three or four RSAs in major hospitals each year, and is targeting mainly the U.S. market. Munro said each customer takes about a year to agree to a sale and receive the device, and then another six months to become fully familiar with it.

Meanwhile, the company, which employs 20 people, 18 of them in Mabou, is continuing to develop applications for the RSA and is researching using the technology to monitor spinal surgery such as spinal fusion. Munro hopes to have more applications for the device to market within a year.

The investment marks the first time in two years NSBI, which is a later-stage investor, has taken on a new client, which is not to say the institution has been idle. In providing follow-on investments to such portfolio companies as LED Roadway Lighting and Origin Biomed, the agency has invested $8.3 million in the fiscal year that began April 1 and is looking closely at three or four other companies for possible investments.

Peter MacNeil, the director of the VC division, said in an interview the company has invested $27 million since April 2009. (To put that into perspective, it’s more than Nova Scotia has budgeted for its new CleanTech fund.)

“We are the most active VC in Atlantic Canada, having attracted or assisted in attracting more than $41 million in additional investment to our portfolio companies during the same time period,’’ said MacNeil.

Halifax BioMedical first made news in 2005 when it won Innovacorp’s first I-3 competition, and has since received a $900,000 loan from Nova Scotia’s industrial expansion fund. It also borrowed money from Entreprise Cape Breton and other sources.  The $3 million raise should last the company at least two years, Munro said.