Sonendo Inc. aims to build a business by easing the pain of root canals.
The Laguna Hills startup recently agreed to terms on a $20 million equity financing round. It plans to use the money to finish developing its technology, pay for clinical studies, and bring its root canal device to market.
The company has 20 employees, and is hiring engineers, research and development staff, and marketing and clinical professionals, among others. It plans to eventually make the devices at its Laguna Hills headquarters.
Sonendo uses a mixture of irrigating fluids and sound waves to clean inside the roots of teeth—the canals that are prone to infection. The device aims to shorten the process of treating root canals and make it more predictable.
Alternative
Sonendo is seeking to become the alternative to what Chief Executive Bjarne Bergheim calls a 200-year-old method of treating root canals: opening up teeth and filing the tissue and bacteria within.
The device is not a laser, a technology that has gained some acceptance with dentists.
“Today, the files are better but it’s still the same concept,” Bergheim said, adding that files are painful and don’t clean teeth well.
“There are a lot of internals of the tooth that are not touched (by files),” he said.
Teeth cleaned in the laboratory and clinical trials by Sonendo are “significantly cleaner than traditional therapy,” Bergheim said.
Root canals are considered by many in the dental industry to be one of the most predictable and profitable procedures. A 2009 survey posted on industry website TheWealthyDentist.com showed that the average cost for a root canal procedure was $740 for a front tooth and $1,000 for a molar, or back tooth.
Sonendo plans to submit an application for a 510(k) clearance with the Food and Drug Administration within a few months, Bergheim said.
OrbiMed Advisors LLC of New York and NeoMed Management of Norway led Sonendo’s new financing round.
Sonendo also gained a pair of board members with its funding: Vince Burgess, a venture partner at OrbiMed, and Erik Amble, NeoMed’s founder and managing partner.
Burgess said in a statement that in the U.S. alone “there are more than 15 million root canal procedures performed every year, nearly all of which utilize simple metal files and too often yield imperfect results.”
Potential
OrbiMed believes that Sonendo’s technology will have “the potential to change the standard of care for root canal procedures” once it is fully developed, Burgess said.
NeoMed and OrbiMed joined existing investors, including Laguna Hills-based Fjord Ventures, in Sonendo’s latest round of funding.
Fjord Ventures is run by veteran healthcare investor Olav Bergheim, who is Bjarne Bergheim’s father.
Fjord is “looking for disruptive technologies, preferably in billion-dollar markets,” Bjarne Bergheim said.
The firm acts as what the younger Bergheim terms as an “accelerator” and provides active management help to its portfolio companies.
Sonendo is no stranger to raising money. It filed regulatory papers in August 2011 showing that it raised $5.9 million from undisclosed investors.
Sonendo has yet to determine whether it will seek to raise more money in the future, Bjarne Bergheim said.
“That’s more of a commercialization decision.”
He emphasized that Sonendo wants to remain independent rather than being sold to another dental company.
Sonendo is planning to sell its device directly to endodontists, who are the dentists that specialize in root canals. It does not plan to go through a dental distribution company.
Bjarne Bergheim said that Sonendo was not aware of any other company aiming to “transform endo” through replacing the files used in root canals.
Sonendo was previously known as Dentatek Corp. and was founded in 2006 as part of Fjord Ventures. Cofounders include Olav Bergheim; California Institute of Technology professor Morteza Gharib; retired dentist Erik Hars and Bill Nieman.
