An Indiana medical device company making it safer for surgeons to remove damaged tissue from the brain and spine recently added $6.5 million in cash to expand sales of its lead product and develop new products.
NICO Corp.’s latest round came from existing shareholders including Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, River Cities Capital Fund, CHV Capital, Cornelius Private Investments and Twilight Venture Partners. It brings the company’s total amount raised to more than $20 million.
Myriad, NICO’s lead device, is an automated, nonheat-generating tool that combines the capabilities of scissors and suction to let surgeons maneuver into deep and narrow corridors of the brain without having to switch tools. It was cleared by the FDA in 2007 and launched in 2009.
NICO has found traction in more than 80 hospitals in the U.S., Canada and Australia, it said in a press release, many of them among the top neurosurgery centers in the U.S. Expanding the customer base and securing those top hospitals was one of CEO Jim Pearson’s big objectives when we talked to him in February.
The funding will also support the development of new technology to address metastatic brain cancer, intracerebral hemorrhages and glioblastoma multiforme, the company said.
Neurosurgery has been slower than other fields to adopt minimally invasive techniques its complexity, but 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.
[Photo from NICO Corp.]
