Although it’s trying to keep quiet about its product, a medical device startup developing a new treatment for obesity revealed this week it’s in the middle of raising $5.5 million.
According to a recently filed U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission document, Vibrynt Inc. has raised half of a $5.5 million offering from five investors.
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Vibrynt’s website provides little information about the device and says only that the company is “dedicated to creating minimally invasive therapies for patients suffering from morbid obesity.” A phone call to CEO Beverly Hess was not immediately returned.
Vibrynt’s is another addition to the list of minimally or noninvasive weight loss devices being developed, tested or awaiting U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval, including EndoSphere’s Satisphere, EnteroMedics’ Maestro system, GI Dynamics’ EndoBarrier and BAROnova’s TransPyloric Shuttle system.
The good news is the $1.2 billion obesity treatment market is growing, although it’s expected to become more segmented. The bad news? It’s hard to get weight loss devices to market in the U.S. The FDA has cleared only three medical devices for the treatment of obesity in the last 25 years, and earlier this month, an FDA advisory panel asserted that riskier devices should result in more weight loss than lower-risk methods.
Spun out of the California medical device incubator ExploraMed in 2007, Vibrynt has already done at least three previous rounds of financing, according to SEC documents. Investors include Delphi Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and Texas Pacific Group.