WaveTec Vision Systems Inc., an Aliso Viejo-based medical device maker, has raised $13 million in a second round of venture funding.
The company is developing a diagnostic device that could be used during eye surgeries where an intraocular lens is used, as in cases of cataracts or to correct presbyopia, the loss of the eye’s natural ability to focus.
WaveTec is working on a device that analyzes a wavefront,a line or “wave” that gives a 3-D view of a surface. The device can be mounted directly on a surgical microscope, said Thomas Berryman, WaveTec’s chief executive.
Accuitive Medical Ventures LLC, an Atlanta venture capital firm, and Menlo Park-based De Novo Ventures led WaveTec’s latest funding round. Versant Ventures, an existing WaveTec investor with an office in Newport Beach, also took part.
WaveTec has raised nearly $20 million in all.
The company’s device should allow eye surgeons to do procedures they don’t currently do, according to Charles Warden, a Versant managing director in Newport Beach. It also could lead to better results from surgery, he said.
“The distinctive element of the WaveTec opportunity, in our opinion, is the clinical impact that we believe it can have,” Warden said.
The potential market for devices such as WaveTec’s about $500 million to $800 million a year, Warden said.
WaveTec was started in 1997 and existed on angel funding until 2005. That’s when Versant made its initial $5.25 million investment after learning that wavefront analysis technology could be used in surgeries, according to Berryman.
Berryman’s background includes starting Genyx Inc., a medical device company that also was based in Aliso Viejo. Murray Hill, N.J.-based C.R. Bard Inc. bought Genyx for $60 million in early 2005.
He’s also the former chief financial officer of VLI Corp., an Irvine company that developed the Today Sponge contraceptive in the 1980s.
Venture Ties
Past ties brought Berryman to WaveTec.
Brentwood Venture Capital and William Link, now a Versant general partner, led Genyx’s $3 million round of funding back in 1998.
“Bill Link called me (on) literally my last day in the office at Genyx and said, ‘We’d like to talk to you about a little project,'” Berryman said.
The company expects its wavefront device to come to market in 2008, Berryman said.
WaveTec, which has 15 workers, is doing some clinical studies. The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t require the company to do so for regulatory approval, according to Berryman.
“More than anything, it’s for the surgeons,” he said. “In other words, it’s not just going to be, ‘Hey, here’s a cool little box that you can put in your operating room, but here’s the science that shows how this can be of benefit to you.'”
WaveTec’s latest funding should take the company through the product’s launch, Berryman said. Another round of funding is planned, he said.
As for going public or looking to be acquired, nothing’s certain, Berryman said.
“We’re a venture-funded company, so there has to be a liquidity event somewhere in the future, but we’re not directing ourselves toward anything,” Berryman said.
WaveTec’s device could be used with intraocular lenses from various local companies.
“One of the great things about what we do is that we say we get to be everybody’s friend,” Berryman said.
Santa Ana-based Advanced Medical Optics Inc. and Alcon Inc., the Nestl & #233; SA unit with a sizable presence in Irvine, are two of the larger intraocular lens players.
Startups include AcuFocus Inc. and Visiogen, both of Irvine, Aliso Viejo-based Eyeonics Inc. and ReVision Optics Inc., which is out of Lake Forest.
In terms of rivals, Advanced Medical, Alcon and Rochester, N.Y.-based Bausch & Lomb Inc. offer wavefront devices. Those are being used in vision correction eye surgery, rather than the market WaveTec is targeting, Berryman said.
Surgical microscope companies, such as Germany’s Carl Zeiss AG, could also view WaveTec as a competitor and possibly move to develop their own wavefront entries, he said.