Irvine-based Ivantis Inc. received $17 million in a second round of venture funding for its main product, a device for treating a major cause of blindness.
The company said it will use the money to expand clinical trials for the Hydrus scaffold, which treats glaucoma.
Plans include controlled clinical trials in the U.S. and around the world.
Hydrus is about the size of an eyelash and is implanted into the eye through a minimally invasive microsurgical procedure.
Glaucoma is incurable, but vision loss can be stopped or slowed with treatment.
Investors
New Enterprise Associates and Delphi Ventures, both of Menlo Park, provided the latest funding for Ivantis, which keeps a low profile. Executives declined to comment for this story.
An announcement from Chief Executive Dave Van Meter said that recent financing, the pending start of clinical trials and an approval for sales by European regulators “signify the culmination of many years of inventiveness and hard work by our team on behalf of glaucoma patients worldwide, as well as the surgeons who serve them.”
Ivantis’ technology and leadership is “first rate,” said John Nehra, who holds a seat on the device maker’s board and is a special partner at New Enterprise.
• Headquarters: Irvine
• Founded: 2007 as Denali Vision Inc., changed name in 2008
• Business: medical device maker
• Yearly revenue: pre-revenue
• Notable: Received $17 million in venture funding, European approval for sales of its Hydrus device to treat glaucoma
Ivantis was started in 2007 as a New Enterprise incubator company and previously was known as Denali Vision Inc.
In 2008, it raised $14.6 million in a round of venture funding led by New Enterprise.
“All signals are that this technology can potentially revolutionize glaucoma treatment worldwide,” Nehra said.
Ivantis is targeting a large market—glaucoma affects more than 65 million people worldwide.
Analysts have estimated the yearly drug and surgery market for treating the disease at around $4.5 billion.
Ivantis’ Hydrus device is designed to reduce eye pressure by reestablishing a patient’s natural eye outflow pathway for fluids.
Ivantis said it recently enrolled the first patient in its international Hydrus II clinical.
Europe OK
Approval for sales of Hydrus in Europe came during last week’s World Glaucoma Congress in Paris.
Ivantis eventually intends to focus on developing treatments of “other debilitating diseases within ophthalmology,” according to the company’s website.
Ivantis’ board includes some heavyweights in the medical device industry, such as Albert Graf, a former official at Guidant Corp., which made heart and other devices before it sold itself to Boston Scientific of Natick, Mass., and Chicago’s Abbott Laboratories.
Orange County is home to a number of companies that sell or are developing glaucoma treatments.
They include big companies such as Irvine-based Allergan Inc.; a unit of Switzerland’s Alcon Inc. that has about 800 workers in Irvine; and Abbott Medical Optics, a Santa Ana-based unit of Abbott Laboratories.
