Gecko Biomedical has developed a viscous polymer that can be used in various tissue reconstruction applications
Paris-based Gecko Biomedical began life as a vascular sealant company in December 2013 and CEO Christophe Bancel is now attempting to do a makeover. He would rather the French company be known as a tissue reconstruction company with an ability to produce a polymer that could be used in a variety of medical device applications.
In an interview earlier this year in San Francisco, Bancel said the original technology came from MIT and Bob Langer’s lab and the first application is as a vascular sealant in tissue reconstruction. The polymer that Gecko has created have good adhesion capabilities, Bancel, who is also the founder, said. Hence the name Gecko. The green reptile has special, sticky toes that allow it to climb steep walls and be able to be suspended upside down.
But now the goal is to use this new chemistry and build the industrial capability to produce the polymer en masse. And then use that to develop new applications in tissue reconstruction either solely or in partnership with larger medical device companies
“Our polymers are made up of 3 monomers and you can play with the ratio,” Bancel explained, adding that different proportions can lead to distinct properties. “We want to be involved in nerve reconstruction and nerve repair [for example].”
So what are some of those polymer properties, especially in the vascular sealant space? Here’s how Bancel, who speaks with a decidedly French accent but is completely intelligible, described them:
- They are bioresorbable and fully hydrophobic so when you apply them inside the body, they don’t react with blood. They don’t get diluted.
- They only polymerize when you trigger a stimulus. In Gecko’s case, the stimulus is the light. Until you shine the light, the polymers stay the same.
- It looks like honey and is viscous. Because it’s viscous it doesn’t flow away so it’s very easy to apply and to use it during surgical procedures.
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.
Of competitors in the sealant market, Bancel wasn’t too worried.
“You have products that have sealant functionality but not the way we do it,” he declared, noting that current vascular sealant products in the marketplace are either fibrin-based or bovine, albumin-based.
“The fibrin-based sealants and the bovine-based sealants they can get diluted by blood or water when doctors use it,” Bancel said. “They are very liquid so they spill away. Their products become polymerized as soon as you mix them. In our case, the surgeon completes the procedure and within seconds the product moves from its unpolymerized liquid, viscous state into a polymerized, solid yet flexible state. So the doctor has full control.”
If and when the sealant product, which has CE Mark, is launched in the U.S., Gecko would be taking on companies like Ethicon, part of Johnson & Johnson; CR Bard, Baxter, Cohera Medical and others.
But the company does not intend to be a one-trick pony.
“What is important is that we have been known as a company with a new sealant application, but this was just the tip of the iceberg,” Bancel declared. “If we are working in vascular, cardiac, nerve, bone, ophthalmology, Gecko becomes an open R&D ecosystem on a proprietary technology. We [can] start to engage on a program that we develop by ourselves and now start to do designing for third parties — for larger medtechs.”
He declined to identify who those larger medtechs are or could be.
Gecko has raised 8 million euros in 2013 and 22.5 million euros in 2016. For its Series B, the company is planning to raise around $40-50 million. The product has CE Mark but will require undergoing a premarket approval process here in the U.S. to go through the FDA. The company hopes to file an investigational device exemption and begin selling next year.
