Mayo Clinic in the past year has initiated a slew of commercialization joint ventures and strategic partnerships in the realm of genomics, digital health and diagnostics. Today it’s announcing a new commercialization deal with a medical device company aimed at improving an innovative treatment for severe asthma.
California-based Sanovas makes micro invasive surgical tools to allow surgeons to better access, image, measure and diagnose anatomy in small airways and vessels. Those tools are currently making their way through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 510(k) process.
In a written statement, the company said its collaboration with Mayo is intended to advance the clinical efficacy of bronchial thermoplasty, an outpatient procedure that delivers controlled amounts of thermal energy to the smooth muscle in the airways that constricts in patients with asthma. That, in effect, has been shown to decrease the ability of the airways to constrict.
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The procedure was FDA cleared in 2010 (with a system made by Asthmatx, now owned by Boston Scientific) and is used in patients who can’t control their severe asthma with use of powerful steroids and inhalers. It’s performed in three sessions a few weeks apart.
What Mayo and Sanovas are envisioning, though, are tools that would enable doctors to perform the procedure in a single visit with real-time feedback of treatment efficacy while they’re doing it, according to Dr. Craig Daniels, associate professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Mayo Clinic and co-inventor of Mayo’s patent.
Under the joint development agreement, Mayo Clinic will help develop the technology, and Sanovas will be granted exclusive worldwide license of the patent to incorporate the technology into its portfolio.
This partnership comes on the heels of another recent commercialization joint venture for Mayo with personalized medicine firm Cancer Genetics. It’s another example of how hospitals, in search of fresh revenue streams, are increasingly turning to partners to commercialize the innovation they’re doing in-house.
Financial details of the Mayo-Sanovas agreement were not disclosed.