Fair Winds or Foul in Treating Total Occlusions?

01 Feb 2004

The company that did the largest private financing last years was, surprisingly, Wilmington, MA-based OmniSonics Medical Technologies. The company is developing an innovative technology that uses acoustical energy to break up clots, plaques, and other occlusions wherever they occur in the human vasculature. OmniSonics' Series C financing will ultimately wind up raising a total of $44 million. The company's first approval, expected later this year, will come in treating peripheral disease, but the golden ring is clearly coronary arteries and that includes chronic total occlusions, a challenge that has been particularly vexing for both interventional cardiologists and medical device developers. Indeed, the recent news that CTO start-up Lumend Inc. is significantly scaling back its operations is a case in point.

In a strong medical device private financings climate last year, the company that did the largest private financing was, surprisingly, Wilmington, MA-based OmniSonics Medical Technologies Inc. The company is developing an innovative technology that uses acoustical energy to break up clots, plaques, and other occlusions wherever they occur in the human vasculature. OmniSonics' Series C financing will ultimately wind up raising a total of $44 million, the first tranche of which, representing $34 million, closed at the end of December, with another $10 million scheduled to come in mid-February of 2004. [See Deal]

OmniSonics' financing success is particularly impressive given how much difficulty the company had raising money in the first place. During...