EndiCor Medical Inc., a privately held San Clemente medical device maker, recently closed a $13 million round of venture capital funding.
EndiCor makes catheters used to remove blood clots and soft tissue blockages from heart arteries. The company’s latest funding brings its total raised to $32 million, with another $17 million expected within 18 months, according to W. Jerry Mezger, president and chief executive.
Warburg Pincus Equity Partners LP of New York and The Vertical Group of Summit, N.J., led EndiCor’s newest round. Previous EndiCor investors include Brentwood Venture Capital of Menlo Park, Forward Ventures of San Diego and Batterson Venture Partners LLC of Chicago.
EndiCor plans to use the money to complete clinical trials of disposable devices for coronary artery disease, Mezger said. Those trials should be finished by the end of this year, he said, and the company plans to seek Food and Drug Administration approval in 2002.
“We’ve been selling outside the U.S. for one and a half years,” Mezger said.
EndiCor’s catheter doesn’t require users to buy, maintain or store equipment. The company also wants to apply its technology to treat strokes, he said.
“Today, there are no devices available for that. We want to take our existing device and make the necessary refinements,” Mezger said.
Mezger called finding a catheter-based stroke treatment a “holy grail” among doctors, medical device industry leaders and venture capitalists.
EndiCor’s financing grew out of a contact he made more than a year ago with Dale Spencer, a former Boston Scientific Corp. executive with extensive cardiology device industry experience. Spencer has become EndiCor’s chairman as the result of the latest investment.
Besides Spencer, Richard Randall, another former Boston Scientific executive, joined EndiCor’s board. Elizabeth Weatherman, a Warburg Pincus managing director, and Richard Emmitt, the Vertical Group’s managing director, took board seats. Jack Olshansky, who Spencer replaced as EndiCor’s chairman, remains on the board of directors.
“(Venture capitalists) are looking for good technology, patent protection and the capability of your management team,” Mezger said.
EndiCor’s management team includes people who have worked with Puritan Bennett, now a Mallinckrodt Inc. division, InterTherapy, now part of Boston Scientific and Micro Therapeutics Inc., an Irvine device maker.
Venture capitalists are looking for what Mezger called “solid market opportunities that are not being met and are clearly defined. If it’s vague, you won’t get funded.”
EndiCor doesn’t have any immediate plans to go public, Mezger said.
“This is a very difficult and uncertain market for any high-tech company. We have sufficient funding to complete our plans without the need to go to the public markets.”
If the stock market “transitions to being receptive to our type of company, we will certainly take a look at it,” Mezger said.
EndiCor employs about 60 people. The company was founded in San Diego in 1995 and moved to Orange County a year later.
“We found that Orange County had a much stronger medical technology industry,” Mezger said. “We found more and more experienced employees and managers in Orange County.”
EndiCor also has licensed the use of its catheterization technology to Edwards Lifesciences Corp., the Irvine-based maker of heart valves, according to Mezger. “We licensed the use of the technology for (treating) the arms and legs.” n
