Archives for March 2007
Touchy Feely Devices
Yesterday, a Toronto-based technology firm called Quanser unveiled prototypes of devices that incorporate haptic, or feeling feedback, technology for medical applications. Quanser expects the devices will be used, among other things, for stroke-victim upper body rehabilitation and physician training. A recovering stroke patient could view on a monitor a chair, for example, while applying pressure to a robotic arm. The haptic-equipped arm would simulate the feeling of pushing against an actual chair. Similarly, surgeons in training could experience the feel of cutting through skin or injecting a needle, without ever having to touch a patient. About the firm’s needle simulator device, CTO Jacob Apkarian tells the Canadian Press, “You’re supposed to puncture the first two layers of skin without going through the third, and you would try that a few times before getting it right. You can’t afford to do that on a live patient.”
Scivanta Closes Book on Litigation
Scivanta Medical Corporation this week saw the end of years-long litigation over exclusive rights to distribute Syntest, a hormone replacement therapy drug. The Spring Lake, NJ, firm received a final payment of $2.5 million from Syntho Group related to the settlement agreement entered into by Scivanta, Syntho Group and other related parties on November 22, 2006. Pursuant to the settlement agreement, Syntho Group agreed to pay Scivanta a total of $3.1 million (in addition to the $2.5 million that came through on Tuesday, $250,000 was paid in connection with execution of the agreement, and $300,000 was paid during the three month period following the agreement). With money in its pocket, Scivanta plans to move forward with developing its Hickey Cardiac Monitoring System, a minimally-invasive two-balloon esophageal catheter system used to monitor cardiac performance.
Coapt Systems Completes $22.6 Million Series E Financing
Coapt Systems, a Palo Alto, CA, firm that develops bioabsorbable implants for aesthetic surgery, completed a $22.6 million Series E round of financing. The seven-year old company sells a range of implantable soft tissue fixation devices for use in facial plastic surgery. Its pipeline includes dermatological fillers, currently in late-stage clinical development and to be used as a complement to the fixation devices, as well as an implantable and absorbable hand tendon repair device. The new financing will support Coapt’s launch of the dermal filler products and the in-licensing of additional aesthetic products. The round was led by Easton Capital and Global Life Science Ventures; existing investors Alta Partners, Asset Management Company, Canaan Partners, Boston Millennia Partners, and Foundation Medical Partners also were involved.
Slow Japanese Regulatory Process Affects U.S. Firms
According to a new report by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), slow approval times for medical devices in Japan could negatively affect U.S. firms. And according to the report, Medical Devices and Equipment: Competitive Conditions Affecting U.S. Trade in Japan and Other Principal Foreign Markets, the more innovative the firm, the deeper felt Japan’s lag time: An ITC press release explains, “U.S. medical device firms are the world’s leading developers and exporters of high-technology medical devices… Although the Japanese approval system does not discriminate in its treatment of domestic and foreign-made medical devices, medical device firms that specialize in innovative products are more adversely affected by the regulatory delays and other unique costs of the Japanese approval system because of the shorter product life cycles ( as short as 18 months ) and more rigorous regulatory scrutiny of such products compared
‘Ones to Watch’: Kyphon and Allergan
In its latest issue, National Review of Medicine, a publication aimed at Canadian physicians, cites Kyphon and Allergan as companies to watch in the medical device field. Kyphon specializes in restoring spine function and has a device for relieving pressure on the spine. Allergan’s better known as a pharma player, but it spread its wings last month when it dropped $97 million on EndoArt and its gastric band device. The purchase made Allergan the only company with a U.S.-approved device for gastric banding (although Red Herring says it won’t enjoy that luxury much longer), commonly offered as a less invasive option to gastric bypass surgery. NRM highlights Kyphon and Allergan, but is a believer in the industry as a whole, noting, “From stents to joint replacement to artificial organs, medical devices are destined to play an increasingly important role in medicine. The industry should not be much affected
Canadian Firm Gets Green Light to Sell in U.S.
Medical Ventures, of British Columbia, got 510(k) clearance this week to start selling its PeriPatch Aegis system in the U.S. PeriPatch Aegis is used to reinforce surgical staple lines during procedures such as bariatric and thoracic surgery. The company says it will begin limited marketing of the product in the second quarter of this year. When used in conjunction with standard surgical staplers, the device helps reduce leakage and bleeding around staple lines. It can be used in minimally invasive laparoscopic and endoscopic procedures as well as in traditional open surgeries. U.S. approval was especially critical, given the market for bariatric surgery. As Medical Ventures points out in its press release, ”Bariatric surgery to treat obesity, commonly referred to as ’stomach stapling,’ is one of the fastest-growing medical procedures in the U.S. According to a recent Frost & Sullivan report, it is expected that more
New ViOptix Chief Formerly of Now-Defunct Curon
ViOptix announced yesterday that Larry C. Heaton II has joined the company as president, CEO and chairman. Heaton’s been looking for work since November 2006, when Curon Medical, where he was CEO, went bankrupt. Before Curon, Heaton was in charge at Response Genetics, an applied genomics start-up firm providing contract research and clinical trial gene expression services to the pharmaceutical industry.
’70s Flashback?
Efforts to reduce healthcare costs often emphasize the demand side of the economic equation, focusing on areas such as tort reform and consumer-directed healthcare as ways to wring greater efficiencies from the marketplace. But according to Lawton Robert Burns, a professor of healthcare systems at Wharton, we’re not paying enough attention to the supply side, or the cost of developing new medicines and medical devices.
New England Investors Hot for Healthcare
Last year, VCs swarmed New England, raising the dollar volume of their healthcare-related investments by 44 percent over 2005, according to a report produced jointly by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. Deal volume likewise rose 21 percent in the region. In all, New England’s Health Industry sector received nearly $1.3 billion during 2006. “With an average of $10.6 million per deal, New England’s health industries 2006 average deal size was 13 percent higher than the $9.4 million national average,” the report notes, adding that nationwide health-related VC funding rose “from $3,862.3 million invested into 376 companies in 2005 to 423 companies receiving $4,510.7 million in 2006.”
North Carolina Entrepreneur Bypasses Angels and VCs
North Carolina serial entrepreneur Max Wallace has devised what he says is a new business model for his latest medical start up. The company, called TheraLogics, is looking at ways to limit the role of inflammation in disease. To fund it, Wallace is bypassing traditional money sources such as angels and VCs. Instead, he’s assembling a network of researchers whose sweat equity will earn them an interest in the company, an article in TechJournal South reports. The approach not only minimizes start-up costs, but frees the company from investor pressures to create an exit sooner than might be advisable, Wallace insists. As he explains in the article, third-party investors can drive a “company to behaviors that don’t always serve as the best friend of the science.” Notwithstanding, Wallace isn’t ruling out the eventual need for outside investors. “When the science is
