LINO LAKES, Minnesota — A Minnesota start-up developing a novel coating for balloons and stents is looking to establish a beachhead in Northeast Ohio sometime next year –Â if it can find the funding.
Armed with a $100,000 grant from Lorain County Community College’s Innovation Fund, ReQuisite Biomedical would like to raise another $800,000 before relocating, said co-founder and Chief Executive John Foley.
“There’s a really good infrastructure in Northeast Ohio to help small start-ups get funding and get established,” Foley said, citing examples such as economic development groups BioEnterprise and Jumpstart Inc.
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The preclinical-stage company has collected some data from animal studies, but is probably about three years away from beginning human trials, Foley said. ReQuisite is working to develop coatings for stents and balloons containing two compounds that better promote healing of blood vessels damaged during angioplasty, a procedure in which a catheter with a small balloon at its tip is used to widen a blocked artery.
ReQuisite’s coatings use two natural compounds, called resveratrol and quercetin, that help heal arteries damaged by the “over-stretching” of balloons that can occur in angioplasties, said Foley, who holds a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin and previously was employed by cardiovascular device-maker Guidant Corp.
If it’s able to raise its $900,000 target, three-employee ReQuisite would use the funding to move its operations to Northeast Ohio and further animal studies of its coatings in balloons. “It would be a big deal for us to relocate our families if we didn’t feel like we had secure financing in place,” Foley said.
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The company is in the early stages of discussing the possibility of working with Cleveland Clinic researchers for its studies, as well as occupying space in the new Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center, scheduled to open in May. But Foley stressed that nothing is imminent and the company is still exploring its options.
“This is a long-term process and we’re just putting the pieces in place,” he said. “But we’re excited about the way Ohio has structured itself to help small companies go in there.”