Devices & Diagnostics, Startups

Another startup hoping to tackle obesity using a device raises $19M

Allurion Technologies is seeking $27 million to bring its gastric balloon device, available in Europe, to the U.S. market to tackle the obesity epidemic.

capital

Where drugs have foundered, devices hope to flourish.

At least that is the belief driving several medical device companies that seek to tackle the growing (ahem) problem of obesity in the U.S. and beyond. And some of them have been successful at raising funds as well.

The latest example of this is Allurion Technologies, the Natick, Massachusetts startup that filed a regulatory filing Wednesday showing that it has raised $19 million of the $27 million it wants to raise. Of the 45 investors who participated in the round, three were overseas investors who invested $1.09 million, which is part of the overall money raised per the Form D filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

In an email, Shantanu Gaur, cofounder and chief scientific officer of Allurion, explained that the $19 million was the first closing of an ongoing fundraising round, and declined to comment further.

Allurion makes a non-endoscopic gastric balloon, Ellipse, that can be swallowed and whose removal doesn’t require anesthesia. The device is in the form of a capsule attached to a thread and after the patient swallows it, the thread is detached and removed from the mouth. The balloon is then filled with fluid to take up room inside the stomach which make patients feel fuller faster and eat less.

The device stays in the stomach for several months after which it deflates and is passed out of the body naturally. During this time, the company assists patients with diet coaching and nutrition to information help them make better food choices to prepare for the device being ultimately removed.

In May, Allurion won the Emerging Technology Innovation Award from the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons. Billed as a procedureless, intragastric balloons, the device is different from gastric balloons made by ReShape Medical and Obalon Therapeutics, whose devices are nonsurgical but need to be snaked through the mouth and placed in the stomach using a tube – in other words, they require an endoscopic procedure.

Gastric balloons offer a minimally invasive alternative to bariatric surgery and are also intended for people who do not qualify for the latter procedure. In some cases, patients need to have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of at least 40 to qualify for gastric bypass and other bariatric procedures.

In the case of Ellipse, the company studied patients with a BMI between 27 and 40 showed who showed an average weight loss of 10 kilograms (22 pounds), with participants losing 39 percent of their excess weight and eight centimeters from their waist circumference after being treated with the balloon. Participants also saw improvements in their triglycerides, hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and quality of life, according to the company.

Yet how successful the approaches of Reshape, Obalon (which went public last year) and Allurion will be once the device is removed may be dependent on the willpower of the person they treat.

“We are trying to provide a mechanical fix to a behavioral disease,” said Dr. Kanishka Bhattacharya, associate director of endoscopy at UMass-Memorial Medical Center, in an email, in a previous interview in September. “So if patients do not buy into the lifestyle modification and exercise regimen then weight loss will be transient.  If the patients can maintain the dietary and exercise regimen then they will lose weight and keep it off.”

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