Amaranth Medical, a medical device company with roots in California and Singapore, has raised $20 million for a series B round. The money will support continued development of the company’s bioresorbable scaffold (a dissolving stent) technology and the CE Mark approval process. General Manager and Chief Technical Officer Kamal Ramzipoor compared the stent to a cast. “The cast is only needed for the time the body needs to heal, then it can go away.”
New investors DCP Management of Singapore and VenStar Capital joined repeat investors Bio*One Capital, Charter Life Sciences and PhillipCapital to complete the round. (Much of the funding is from Singapore.)
“Among the recent advances in interventional cardiology, we believe that the development bioresorbable scaffolds is one of the most significant,” Fred M. Schwarzer, managing partner of Charter Life Sciences and chairman of the Amaranth board of directors, said in a release.
“Ultimately, once we have the CE Mark approval, the U.S. is the next natural step,” Ramzipoor said. On entering the U.S. market he added, “We may do it ourselves or we may partner with one of the existing large companies.”
The next generation for the technology at Amaranth? A drug-eluting version. Elixir Medical received CE Mark approval for such a device (although it takes a year to dissolve) earlier this year. It’s not just startups that have taken an interest in this space. Many of the top medical device companies in the heart space are at work to create strong dissolving stent technology. Abbott (ABT) has led the bioresorbable stent space and its ABSORB scaffold has been CE Marked since 2011. It launched the product internationally last year.
Ramzipoor said what sets Amaranth’s technology apart from competitors is its stent platform is as strong as a metallic stent, more flexible and fully bioresorbable. Because of this and the product’s “full conformability,” he said, recoil and downward movement aren’t an issue. It even potentially could take away the need for patients’ use of blood thinners. He said the next generation of bioresorbable scaffolds will start dismantling after three to six months.
As for raising such an impressive amount of venture capital for a medical device in a withering funding environment, Ramzipoor said having human data to approach investors with, as well as running the company on a “a very tight budget,” made Amaranth stand out.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
“Investors look at how the funding is managed and how it can be stretched. That gives them a sense of security, if you will.”
