Location: Waltham, Massachusetts
Industry: Medical Devices (Biologics)
Products: NeoCart is a neocartilage tissue implant that uses the person’s own cells to regenerate cells in patients who have painful cartilage lesions in the knee but are not candidates for total knee replacement. The product is part of an ongoing trial currently enrolling patients. VeriCart — a single-step, cell-free collagen scaffold – is designed to be used together with the patient’s own stem cells to repair small cartilage defects often seen in meniscal and anterior cruciate ligament repair procedures, which are the traditional methods to treat knee injuries.
Money raised: $49 million in series A(regulatory filings show the company raised $13 million in 2006 and $9 million in 2008).
How it will be used: The money will pay for the ongoing phase 3 clinical trial that is testing NeoCart as well as to obtain CE Mark for VeriCart in Europe.
Investors: The lead investor in this round was Sofinnova Ventures. Other new investors were Split Rock Partners, BioMed Ventures and FinTech GIMV Fund, L.P. Existing investors ProChon Holdings BV, Altima Partners, Foundation Medical Partners, Inflection Point Capital and Boston Millennia Partners also reinvested.
Competitors: Carticel, which claims to be the first and only FDA-approved cell therapy for repairing knees of adults that have not responded to arthroscopic or other surgical repair procedures previously.
By Arundhati Parmar
Arundhati Parmar is the Medical Devices Reporter at MedCity News. She has covered medical technology since 2008 and specialized in business journalism since 2001. Parmar has three degrees from three continents - a Bachelor of Arts in English from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India; a Masters in English Literature from the University of Sydney, Australia and a Masters in Journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago. She has sworn never to enter a classroom again.More posts by Author
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