Upon successful completion of the EFPS, a larger pivotal trial will follow. In the pivotal study (Angel™ Catheter in Critically Ill Subjects at high risk of Pulmonary Embolism Trial) critically ill patients at increased risk for PE will receive the Angel™ Catheter. Freedom from Pulmonary Embolism (PE) and rate of catheter-related events will be closely monitored as study endpoints.

The focus of BiO₂ Medical’s planned clinical investigations is in the prophylactic patient group. The currently unmet clinical need to protect critically ill patients from the risk of Pulmonary Embolism is substantial. A number of clinical scenarios define this patient group, including but not
limited to:

Subject has multiple trauma such as:

severe head injury

head injury with a long bone fracture

spinal cord injury with paraplegia or quadriplegia

multiple (≥2) long bone fractures with or without pelvic fracture

Critically ill subject in the Intensive Care Unit with:

hemorrhagic or ischemic stroke

multiple organ failure

active or recent bleeding

severe sepsis

Critically ill subjects that have undergone or are about to undergo a surgical procedure that requires temporary (≥48 hours) interruption of medical prophylaxis

The design of the Angel™ Catheter, allows for bedside insertion without the need for fluoroscopy, for the prevention of Pulmonary Embolism, as well as access to the central venous system for administration of medications, fluids, or blood products; blood sampling; and monitoring of central venous pressures. The Angel™ Catheter is the first to combine the functions of an inferior vena cava (IVC) filter and a multi-lumen central venous catheter (CVC). 

With permanent attachment of the filter to the central venous catheter, the Angel™ Catheter will be retrieved in all patients when the indications for IVC filtration or central venous access are no longer present. The device is intended for short-term use (less than 30 days). The Angel™ Catheter was the first IVC filter to receive CE Mark approval for a prophylactic indication, in addition to traditional IVC filter & CVC indications.

The clinical investigation is being conducted as part of a new FDA program, the Early Feasibility Pilot Study Program. BiO₂ Medical, Inc. is one of only nine U.S. based, medical device companies selected to participate.

According to Christopher E. Banas, BiO₂ Medical’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, “With this program, the FDA’s forward thinking approach will allow innovative technologies, like the Angel™ Catheter, to become available for patients in the U.S. in a more expeditious manner.”

The Early Feasibility Pilot Study Program provides study sponsors (manufacturers), as well as FDA device reviewers’ a foundation to establish criteria for device modifications and/or protocol development for subsequent clinical studies. The FDA’s new approach to clinical studies will facilitate the development of safer, more effective products, while expediting their availability to the patients that need them.

According to John A. Kaufman MD, Director of the Dotter Interventional Institute, Portland Oregon, “The Early Feasibility studies are a welcome innovation that will allow physicians, industry, and the FDA to accomplish the shared goal of bringing new devices to Americans in an expeditious and safe manner. This is a great example of how close collaboration between industry and the FDA can lead to a vastly improved process and benefit our patients.”

The primary objective of BiO₂ Medical’s EFPS clinical trial is to obtain continued insight into the safety of the Angel™ Catheter in critically ill patients with high risk of Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) disease. Additional information on BiO2 Medical’s clinical studies will soon be available on www.clinicaltrials.gov.

In the UK more than 25,000 people die annually from hospital-related blood clots, with pulmonary embolism responsible for 10% of all deaths in hospital. In the United States, various sources state that anywhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people die annually from Pulmonary Emboli.

Dr. Carl Waldmann, Consultant Anaesthetist & Intensive Care, Royal Berkshire NHS Trust, was quoted on BBC Radio as saying, “the new device can have a dramatic impact on most patients in intensive care who cannot be given anti-blood clotting medications.”

He continued to say, “I think it has potential all over the world as a temporizing measure for critically ill patients. This new procedure can be carried out within an hour of the patient arriving in intensive care and takes only 15 minutes.”

Additionally, research nurse Ellen Bowley, who was part of the team who placed the device in Mrs. Carter stated, “There is nothing like this, it is very exciting, and it could save thousands of lives.”

According to Christopher E. Banas, BiO₂ Medical’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, “We believe that this innovative union of two relatively common medical devices, will provide physicians with an additional tool to protect a population of patients from hospital related PE, that are currently left with no other options. Dr. Angel and our team of engineers developed this technology to offer immediate Pulmonary Embolism protection for ICU patients during the critical unprotected window, while simultaneously allowing for lifesaving fluid and medication administration.”

For more information regarding BiO₂ Medical and the Angel™ Catheter, please visit www.bio2medical.com.

Additional coverage on the story is available on the BBC website via the following link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-21655038

Read more: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bio2-medical-raises-12m-in-series-c-funding-168960556.html

BiO₂ Medical, Inc., a Texas based medical device manufacturer with corporate offices in San Antonio, Texas, and R&D and manufacturing operations in Golden, Colorado, has recently secured $12M in Series C funding. The company worked closely with BiO₂ Medical’s investment bankers, Pasadera Capital for this Series C round. This funding will allow BiO₂ Medical to commercialize the Angel™ Catheter. Remeditex Ventures, LLC led the round along with BiO₂ Medical’s existing investors.

Christopher E. Banas, BiO₂ Medical’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer said, “We are thrilled to have Remeditex join on with BiO₂ Medical, as they bring a tremendous amount of experience to the company. We are all looking forward to a successful launch of the Angel™ Catheter which will provide a valuable tool for providing PE prophylaxis in critically ill patients.”

“We are excited to be part of the highly qualified BiO₂ Medical team. BiO₂ has developed a promising product that addresses a significant unmet medical need,” said John Creecy, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Remeditex Ventures. “We believe the company is poised to become an important innovator, addressing the needs of patients by substantially reducing the risks associated with pulmonary embolism.”

BiO₂ Medical’s Angel™ Catheter, named after its inventor and BiO₂ Medical’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Luis F. Angel, is a central venous catheter and Inferior Vena Cava (IVC) filter combination device, intended to protect against potentially fatal Pulmonary Embolism (PE) in critically ill patients. The Angel™ Catheter will include a first of its kind prophylactic indication for IVC filter use. For more information regarding BiO₂ Medical and the Angel™ Catheter, please visit www.bio2medical.com.

Published 04:27 p.m., Thursday, November 4, 2010

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/local/article/Grants-awarded-to-16-S-A-biotech-companies-798883.php#ixzz1HLILEJZ2

Federal tax-credit grants totaling about $4.9 million have been awarded to 16 San Antonio biotechnology companies.

The grants are among $1 billion that was made available under the health care reform legislation signed into law in March.

Most of the San Antonio companies received grants worth $244,479, though six companies each received two grants of varying amounts.

The companies are conducting research and development in therapeutic areas, including the treatment of cancer, pulmonary embolism and burns, as well as regenerative medicine, bone marrow aspiration and cell manufacturing.

BioMed SA, a public/private partnership that promotes San Antonio’s health care and bioscience industry, and the law firm Fulbright & Jaworski offered a free seminar on the web instructing companies on how to take advantage of the tax-credit grant program.

“This is an important victory for small bioscience companies,” said Ann Stevens, BioMed’s president. “It provides an opportunity for meaningful relief for this industry at a time when the capital markets are very challenging. We’re very pleased this tax-credit grant program was included in the health care reform legislation.”

The Therapeutic Discovery Project was administered by the Internal Revenue Service.

The six San Antonio companies that received two grants and the total amounts they received, according to the IRS’s website, are as follows: BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals Inc., $488,959; ENTrigue Surgical Inc., $481,391; GenSpera Inc., $488,959; Keraplast Technologies Ltd., $400,579; Trinity Laboratories Inc., $456,730; and Vidacare Corp., $488,958.

Seven San Antonio companies each received a grant valued at $244,479: America Stem Cell Inc.; Aperion Biologics Inc.; Azaya Therapeutics Inc.; BiO2 Medical Inc.; Incell Corp.; Seno Medical Instruments Inc.; and ViroXis Corp.

Three other companies received the following amounts: BioMedical Development Corp., $103,122; NanoRelease Technologies LLC, $153,383; and Rochal Industries LLP, $120,409.

Date: Sunday, July 25, 2010, 11:00pm CDT – Last Modified: Thursday, July 22, 2010, 12:01pm CDT

Read more: Venture capital funding ticking upward in the Alamo City | San Antonio Business Journal

San Antonio managed to snare a few more venture capital deals and a big increase in investment dollars in the second quarter of this year, compared to the same period in 2009, according to a recently released report.

The city chalked up three VC deals totaling $18.3 million during the second quarter of 2010, up from one deal that netted $853,000 in the second quarter of 2009. The increased VC activity is an important indicator that the city’s biomedical sector is beginning to blossom, according to local industry observers.

“There’s a perfect storm of additional successful serial entrepreneurs becoming available for follow-on deals (in) key industries” such as biotech, says attorney Stephanie Chandler, a partner specializing in securities transactions in the San Antonio office of law firm Jackson Walker LLP.

At the top of the VC recipient list for the second quarter of this year is locally based ENTrigue Surgical Inc. The company, which makes medical devices for surgical procedures, received $10.9 million in early stage funding from Needham, Mass.-based Prism VentureWorks and Palo Alto, Calif.-based The Vertical Group.

BiO2 Medical Inc., a developer of medical devices for the treatment of pulmonary embolism, received $6.7 million in startup/seed capital in the second quarter of this year from locally based Incyte Venture Partners LLC.

The third company making its mark in the second-quarter VC data is pharmaceuticals developer ViroXis Corp., which received $773,000 in early stage funding from Birmingham, Ala.-based Greer Capital Advisors LLC and an undisclosed firm.

The VC data is contained in the most recent PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree Report, which is based on data from Thomson Reuters.

Statewide, the report shows, VC investments more than doubled, from $73.6 million in the second quarter of 2009 to $188.7 million in the second quarter of 2010. The number of deals also increased, from 25 to 39 over the same period.

Nationally, VC investments rose from $4.3 billion to $6.5 billion year over year. The number of deals nationwide also jumped, from 705 to 906.

Good position

Jim Poage, president and CEO of local nonprofit tech-advocacy group Startech (formerly known as SATAI), says the uptick in VC funding in San Antonio in the second quarter was prompted by the city’s pipeline of investable companies.

“The maturity level of the startup companies here in San Antonio has been steadily increasing over the past five to 10 years, so there’s a much richer target for venture capitalists,” Poage says.

Randy Goldsmith, president and CEO of the San Antonio-based Texas Technology Development Center (T3DC), says the attractiveness of the city to investors continues to increase as more “technology-driven institutions and organizations grow their presence here along with their research budgets.”

In particular, Goldsmith points to the strength of the city’s health care sector, which includes the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and an expanding military medicine component due to the Base Realignment and Closure action — which is establishing San Antonio as a health care hub for the military.

“The Texas Research and Technology Foundation created T3DC to manage the Robert McDermott Pre-seed Fund to take advantage of this growing opportunity for new ventures,” Goldsmith says. “The McD Fund is designed to provide launch capital for promising deals. Likewise, one of the targets of the new InCube Ventures Fund II (a local venture capital fund currently being organized) is military medicine along with (spin-offs from) University of Texas at San Antonio and UT Health Science Center research.

“All of that being said, we are a long way from where we could be, but trending in a positive direction,” Goldsmith adds.

Poage says the city has “opened a new chapter” in its “appetite for new companies” by working to bring California-based business incubator InCube Labs to San Antonio in an effort to nurture more biomedical startups that can, in turn, attract more venture capital.

San Antonio-area leaders have offered InCube Labs founder Mir Imran $10 million in public-sector investment to help launch the new InCube facility, which would be located near Interstate 10 on the city’s Northwest Side. In exchange for the investment, the public-sector entities, such as the city, would gain a stake in the start-up firms launched through the incubator.

Chandler says the arrival of InCube Labs in San Antonio is the latest in a continuing growth trajectory for early stage biotech development and she predicts that third-quarter VC numbers will “further exceed the success from earlier this year.”

Read more: Venture capital funding ticking upward in the Alamo City | San Antonio Business Journal

Bio | Email

http://www.kens5.com/home/SA-doctor-invents-new-filter-to-stop-deadly-blood-clots-94937984.html

Posted on May 26, 2010 at 12:23 PM

Updated Wednesday, May 26 at 12:28 PM

A San Antonio doctor has invented a new medical device with the potential to save thousands of lives. It’s a filter for deadly blood clots.

For critical care patients in the hospital, pulmonary embolisms are a serious threat. Blood clots that form in the legs can break off and travel to the lungs. It’s a medical problem that kills 300,000 Americans every year.

Pulmonologist Dr. Luis Angel is a San Antonio doctor who has built the proverbial better mouse trap. His brainchild is the Angel Vena Cava Filter Catheter. It includes a self-expanding, nickel titanium trap threaded through a central line catheter. No separate procedure is required, protecting patients from the beginning of their hospital stay.

“By combining the two, you simplify the procedure, and more importantly, you provide protection to the patient the moment they’re admitted,” said Paul Castella, president of BiO2 Medical, Inc.

Angel said he’s pleased with what engineers did with his original concept. “I think it’s going to work very well,” Angel commented. “They were able to make drawings on a piece of paper into an actual device and it’s looking very nice.”

Angel’s invention is being developed and marketed through a San Antonio biotech company called BiO2 Medical, Inc., which has managed to attract more than $7.5 million from local investors.

Combining the filter with an existing device is a simple and elegant solution which will help patients who cannot take blood thinning medications. When patients don’t need the filter anymore, it can be removed easily.

“They day that this goes into a patient and does what it’s supposed to do, that’s going to be the day that I’m extremely excited,” Angel commented.

“The device itself, I think, will have a very major impact on the treatment of pulmonary embolism in patients,” stated Castella. “It literally will save lives.”

BiO2 Medical, Inc. hopes to get European approval for the Angel Vena Cava Filter by early 2011. After rigorous testing, the company will try for F.D.A. approval here in the U.S., poised to make a lot of money for helping manage a serious health threat.

BiO2 raising $7.5 million for ‘game changer’ device

Premium content from San Antonio Business Journal – by W. Scott Bailey

Date: Sunday, May 23, 2010, 11:00pm CDT – Last Modified: Wednesday, May 19, 2010, 5:54pm CDT

Read more: Biotech firm boosted by a private offering | San Antonio Business Journal

BiO2 Medical Inc. has created a device its executives believe could save millions of lives.

The San Antonio-based company is in the process of raising $7.5 million in private equity to move that product one step closer to the market. Company officials say they plan to use the proceeds from the offering to secure a CE Mark — Europe’s equivalent to FDA approval — for BiO2 Medical’s device, the Angel™ Vena Cava Filter Catheter.

The new medical device was designed to prevent the occurrence of pulmonary embolisms in critically-ill patients. Such embolisms are usually the result of a blood clot, which forms in the leg but travels upward to the lungs where it blocks blood flow, leading to serious illness or death.

BiO2 Medical officials say the occurrence of pulmonary embolisms is on the rise, causing some 300,000 deaths annually in the U.S. and roughly another 450,000 deaths in Europe each year.

The company’s Angel™  Vena Cava Filter incorporates two functions into a single device: A temporary and removable vena cava filter and a central venous access catheter.

BiO2 Medical Chairman and CEO Christopher Banas says the new device could ultimately mean the difference between life and death for hundreds of thousands of patients annually.

According to a regulatory filing the private company is required to make with the SEC as part of its $7.5 million private equity offering, BiO2 Medical had, as of May 3, raised a total of nearly $6.7 million from 57 investors. Company President Dr. Paul Castella says the remaing $800,000 is committed and BiO2 expects to finalize that investment shortly. The company is currently in the product development stage and, according to the SEC filing, has no revenues.

Banas, who co-founded BiO2 Medical, says the cash infusion is critically important in helping the company bring its new product to market. “It will give us enough operating capital to get a CE Mark in Europe for this first-generation filter catheter that we developed,” he explains. “It will let us do all of the animal (testing) studies at Texas A&M University (and all of the) testing to support European approval.

“Our plan,” Banas adds, “is to get a CE Mark first and then work toward (FDA) approval soon thereafter.”

The CE Mark will allow BiO2 Medical to sell and distribute its new device in Europe. And that, Banas contends, represents a multimillion-dollar opportunity.

“The total market opportunity (in the U.S. and Europe) is a huge number,” he says. “It’s going to be in the billion-dollar range.”

Up for grabs

Banas also co-founded CardioSpectra Inc., a privately held company that developed innovative Optical Coherence Tomography, or OCT, technology. In 2007, San Diego-based Volcano Corp. acquired CardioSpectra for about $63 million, according to Banas.

Is there an opportunity for BiO2 Medical to leverage its filter catheter technology into a similar company sale?

“Absolutely,” Banas insists. “Our business model is that we invent technologies or license technologies, conduct all of the early product development, do the regulatory filing and then seek the commercialization. At some point during this process, we are going to see if there is a candidate out there to acquire us.

“Our intent,” he adds, “is to manufacture this (filter catheter) device and then sell the entire concept to a company as a turnkey operation with a saleable product.”

Might BiO2 Medical fetch a price comparable to the CardioSpectra sale?

“We’d like to think that it’s going to be significantly higher than what CardioSpectra brought in,” Banas says.

The BiO2 Medical team has an impressive history of product development and commercialization in the medical arena. In 2003, for example, Banas and Dr. Julio Palmaz, then partners in Advanced Bio Prosthetic Surfaces, licensed a unique stent technology to Cordis, a division of Johnson & Johnson.

Plenty of options

Karutz Flavin Wells Investment Bankers LLC has served as an advisor to BiO2 Medical and is leading its current round of financing. Meade Flavin, a partner in KFW, says most of the funding raised through the $7.5 million offering has come from private investors. He says Targeted Technologies, a medically focused venture fund headed by Alan Dean, invested roughly $1 million.

In the fall of 2009, according to SEC filings, BiO2 Medical initiated a $1 million debt offering. That debt was exchanged for equity as part of the recent offering, Castella says. The Business Journal previously reported that BiO2 Medical received $1 million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund in late 2008.

KFW has been retained to assist BiO2 Medical with corporate development and future transactions. Flavin says Banas and Castella have an impressive track record when it comes to commercializing intellectual property.

Flavin says he expects that BiO2 Medical will attract some suitors.

“We believe BiO2 is going to be particularly attractive to strategic companies who are already in the filter and/or catheter market or to those companies who wish to enter this growing market,” he says.

Dr. Luis Angel is a co-founder of BiO2 Medical. He is also the chief medical officer for the company, the inventor of the Angel™  Vena Cava Filter Catheter and is director of Lung Transplantation and Interventional Pulmonology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Flavin says the BiO2 Medical team has earned strong investor confidence.

“There is a tremendous amount of interest in BiO2,” he says. “Investors have placed a big bet on Dr. Angel’s novel solution and the team’s ability to execute. I think it was a well-placed bet.

“The fact is, BiO2 Medical could have a saleable device in the European market by this time next year,” Flavin adds. “And this device could be a game-changer.”

In the meantime, Banas says BiO2 Medical will likely need to pursue yet another round of financing to seek FDA approval for its product and to begin the manufacturing process. And whether BiO2 Medical officials elect to market their product or sell the company, Banas suggests that they and the San Antonio entity are in a strong position.

“We have a lot of options ahead of us,” he says.

Read more: Biotech firm boosted by a private offering | San Antonio Business Journal

SAN ANTONIO, TX (MMD Newswire) May 6, 2010 — San Antonio based BiO2 Medical, Inc. has created a medical device that the company’s executives believe could save hundreds of thousands of lives per year. The company recently closed on a $7.5 million Series B round, which includes about $6.5 million of new capital that will be used to seek a CE Mark (Europe’s equivalent to FDA Approval) for its lead product, the Angel™ Vena Cava Filter Catheter. The device aims to prevent the occurrence of a pulmonary embolism (PE) in critically ill patients.

A pulmonary embolism is usually the result of a blood clot which forms in the leg (deep vein thrombosis) and breaks free, traveling up through the veins to the lungs, where it blocks blood flow, leading to death or serious illness. Incidents of pulmonary embolism are on the rise, increasing by double digits, and cause approximately 300,000 deaths annually in the US, and 450,000 deaths per year in Europe.

BiO2 Medical, Pulmonary Embolism

Although anticoagulation therapy (blood thinners) is the preventive treatment of choice, in many patients that therapy is contraindicated and therefore those patients cannot receive anticoagulation. As a result, physicians are increasingly using temporary inferior vena cava (IVC) filters as a preventive measure, particularly in patients with a high risk of bleeding due to trauma, major surgery or critical illness.

Despite physicians’ use of retrievable temporary vena cava filters as a preventative measure, the vast majority of these temporary filters are not retrieved. As a result, prolonged use of temporary filters has been associated with a number of complications, including migration of the filter to the heart, vena cava thrombosis, and perforation of the vena cava. To overcome these challenges, BiO2 Medical has developed the Angel™ Vena Cava Filter Catheter which has a NITINOL vena cava filter permanently attached to multilumen central venous access catheter and thus is able to be safely removed when no longer needed.

The Angel^™ Vena Cava Filter Catheter is a combination device that incorporates two functions into a single device: a temporary/removable vena cava filter and a central venous access catheter. This device functions as a normal central venous catheter (“central line”) by the use of a multilumen catheter, that provides access to the central venous system for the administration of medications, fluids and blood products in addition to blood sampling and central venous pressure monitoring, but it also includes a permanently attached NITINOL vena cava filter to the central line catheter. Like other central lines, this combination device is designed for bedside placement upon admission.

This new device could mean the difference between life and death for hundreds of thousands of patients world-wide, especially critically ill patients with venous thromboembolism or others who are at high risk of pulmonary embolism but cannot receive anticoagulation therapy.

“Incorporating a low profile, vena cava filter onto a fully functional central line catheter required sophisticated engineering to develop, but the result is elegantly simple, thanks to our talented team of engineers,” says Chairman and CEO, Christopher E. Banas. “This Team is essentially the same team that successfully developed a variety of medical devices in the past then sold the resulting turnkey operations to major medical device companies, such as Johnson and Johnson, Genzyme and Volcano Corporation.” BiO2 Medical was founded by Banas, Dr. Paul Castella (President and CFO) and Dr. Luis Angel, the Director of Lung Transplantation and Interventional Pulmonology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSC/SA) and the company’s Chief Medical Officer and inventor of the Angel™ Vena Cava Filter Catheter.

Banas and Castella have a long and impressive history of product development and commercializing medical devices. In 2003, Banas and his partner in Advanced Bio Prosthetic Surfaces, Dr. Julio Palmaz ( inventor of the balloon expandable stent), licensed a unique NITINOL stent technologies to Cordis, a division of Johnson & Johnson. Xenotope Diagnostics’ co-founder and CEO, Castella, licensed worldwide manufacturing and sales rights for a unique rapid-test technology developed by Xenetope to Genzyme Corporation in 2004. Then in 2005, Banas and Castella co-founded CardioSpectra, another medical device company, which they sold to Volcano Corporation in late 2007. “When we saw Dr. Luis Angel’s concept for the Angel™ Vena Cava Filter Catheter, we knew it had the potential to become the new standard of care and save millions of lives,” Banas recalls. “It is an elegant solution to a complex problem”.

Funding for BiO₂ Medical came from the San Antonio-based Targeted Technology Fund I, LP, led by Alan H. Dean the CEO of Incyte Venture Partners, LLC, and from local San Antonio investors. Karutz Flavin Wells Investment Bankers was the firm’s exclusive representative in this financing. BiO2 Medical also previously received $1.0 million from Governor Rick Perry’s Texas Emerging Technology Fund (ETF), with which the founders have a successful track record.

The Angel^™ Vena Cava Filter Catheter could be on the market in Europe next year where it will compete with other central lines and vena cava filters such as those made by C. R. Bard, Edwards Lifesciences, Terumo and Cordis, a division of Johnson and Johnson.

Media Contact:
BiO2 Medical, Inc.
Christopher E. Banas, Chairman & CEO
(210) 694-5222
cbanas@bio2medical.com

Date: Thursday, November 19, 2009, 11:42am CST

Read more: San Antonio venture capital fund gains $750,000 investment | San Antonio Business Journal

The Texas Research and Technology Foundation (TRTF) invested an additional $750,000 in the locally based venture capital fund Targeted Technology Fund I.

This latest infusion brings the foundation’s investment into the fund up to $1 million.

The Texas Research and Technology Foundation originally invested $250,000 in the fund in July.

The fund was formed in the spring of 2008 to capitalize on the growth of the biomedical device sector in Texas, Colorado, Georgia and Alabama.

To date, the fund has invested in two locally based companies — Vidacare Corp. and BiO2 Medical. The fund has a cap of $50 million. Money is still being raised for the fund.

Alan Dean, general manager of the fund, says the foundation’s partnership with the fund makes sense.

“The Texas Research and Technology Foundation provides the initial seed funding for emerging technologies to enter the marketplace, while the fund provides the next phase of capital investment for young biomedical companies that demonstrate strong growth potential,” Dean says.

York Duncan, TRTF president, adds that the foundation is filling an important gap in funding for small biomedical companies that are looking for the next stage of funding once they have grown past the seed funding stage.

“By closing this gap, San Antonio will be able to retain and attract new business in this sector,” Duncan says. “Additionally, the fund’s management experience in launching and exiting companies as well as their hands-on approach with the companies in their portfolio make them an attractive investment.”

Read more: San Antonio venture capital fund gains $750,000 investment | San Antonio Business Journal

By David Saleh Rauf

Published 05:44 p.m., Thursday, October 8, 2009

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Medical-device-maker-gets-fund-boost-843659.php#ixzz1HLJrEh8a

A San Antonio-based medical device company will receive $500,000 in venture capital funds to advance technology that prevents pulmonary embolisms by trapping blood clots before they reach the lung.

BiO2 Medical – which was co-founded by Dr. Luis Angel, director of Interventional Pulmonary and Lung Transplantation at the University of Texas Health Science Center – is planning to use the money to commercialize a device called the Angel™ vena cava filter-catheter. The device is designed to prevent the spread of a blood clot that typically forms in the leg of a critically ill patient and travels up to the lung, causing a potentially fatal pulmonary embolism – a condition that BiO2 Medical estimates causes 300,000 deaths annually.

The $500,000 will supplement a $1 million award the medical device maker received this summer from the state’s Emerging Technology Fund to ready the product for commercialization.

The first round of clinical studies is expected to occur next year and will be used to gain entrance into the European market, said Dr. Paul Castella, president of BiO2 Medical and a managing director of the venture capital firm that supplied the $500,000.

“About a year later, we’ll seek FDA approval here in the United States,” he said.

The Targeted Technology Fund I LP, a San Antonio-based venture capital firm focused primarily on biomedical investments in the Alamo City and South Texas, provided the financial boost to BiO2 Medical. It marks the second investment the venture capital firm has made since launching this summer.

“The fund is focused on the development of medical devices, especially those that address significant and unmet needs,” Castella said. “This is certainly the case with this device. It was a natural.”

In July, the venture capital firm announced a nearly $800,000 investment in San Antonio-based medical device maker Vidacare Corp., a company whose portfolio already includes an award-winning device and 13 products approved by federal regulators. By contrast, BiO2 Medical still is in the prototype stage for its Angel vena cava filter-catheter and has no products on the market.

Pumping capital into an already established company like Vidacare and one that has the potential to emerge as an industry player in the future provides investors with opportunities for “staggered exits,” said Alan Dean, a managing director of the fund.

“It’s good to balance your portfolio,” he said. “If you invest only in companies that are in the early stages, you have liquidity events that are pretty far away from each other.”

Though the fund is primarily devoted to medical devices, Castella and Dean say its next investment could be in a San Antonio-based drug company called ViroXis, which is developing a plant-based topical drug to treat warts caused by human papillomavirus.

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Medical-device-maker-gets-fund-boost-843659.php#ixzz1HLJuTbUD