A young medical device company is leading the way in making certain brain and spine surgeries easier and less risky with its minimally invasive neurosurgery tool.
NICO Corp. in Indianapolis, Indiana creates instruments for safe, minimally invasive tumor and cyst removal from the brain and spine. While even minimally invasive neurosurgery requires opening the skull or spine canal, openings are much smaller with the catheters and endoscopic surgery tools available today.
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The Myriad device is an automated, nonheat-generating tool that combines the capabilities of scissors and a suction, and allows surgeons to make more controlled, precise movements and maneuver into deep, narrow corridors of the brain. The product line is compatible with nearly all neuroendoscopes. Surgeons can work with smaller openings without an impeded view of the surgical field, and they don’t have to switch tools as often, so there’s less risk for damage to surrounding critical structures.
“Neurosurgery is probably the last specialty to move to minimally invasive because of the complexity,” said NICO Corp. President and CEO Jim Pearson. “A lot of vendors have said the market is not there or it’s too small. We’re kind of making this market.”
And it’s quite a big market. According to a Life Science Intelligence market report from 2009, the global market for minimally invasive neurosurgical products will reach $3.7 billion by 2015. Devices on the market include the Visionsense VSii system, a 3-D camera used in endoscopic procedures, and the Pipeline Embolization Device by ev3, used to treat brain aneurysms.
NICO’s technology was invented by Joe Mark and named after a young boy named Nico, one of the first patients to undergo surgery with use of the tool. Mark and Pearson are part of a team that in the early 2000s launched Suros, a life sciences company that developed a minimally invasive breast biopsy device that was eventually acquired by Hologic Inc. for $248 million. That same technology is the basis of the Myriad device.
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More than 40 angel investors and a few VC’s including Clarian Group Ventures have invested $12 million in the company, Pearson said, many of them the same ones who invested in Suros. “The good news is we’ve raised very little money comparatively, but we’re doing well where we don’t need to go for more right now,” Pearson said.
The Myriad received U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance back in 2007, launched in 2009 and now has more than 50 customers, including 40 percent of the top 40 hospitals, Pearson said.
So where does the company go from here? “At this point it’s penetration within the market with what I would call the top 20 neurosurgery centers for adults and pediatrics,” he said. “Those top centers, clearly folks look to them.”
The device has just been granted regulatory approval in Australia and Canada, so the company has been focusing its energy on setting up distribution mechanisms in those countries. It’s also hoping to launch in Europe within the next six months, since it has already been given the CE Mark.
There are also some new products in the works to be launched next year, Pearson added, in addition to the product line extensions launched last year, so the company will be working for uptake on those.
Pearson said that Indiana has provided a “very positive healthcare environment” that has helped the company grow over the past few years.
“We’ve been working really hard here to build some life science initiatives,” he said. “We have Rose Hulman, Purdue, Indiana, several research parks and outsource manufacturing, so those things will definitely help us.”
