Sutura USA Inc., a Fountain Valley-based medical device maker, is looking to take on the industry’s big names in a surgery niche.
Sutura’s main product is SuperStitch, a device used to stitch together punctures made to the groin’s femoral artery during catheter-based heart and radiology procedures.
“We hope to be a significant player in this field,” said Anthony Nobles, Sutura’s founder and chief executive. “It’s a big market,we’re talking about a market that has a potential of over a billion dollars.”
Nobles, an engineer who has invented several devices, came up with SuperStitch a decade ago. Sutura displayed the latest version last month at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics conference in Washington, D.C.
SuperStitch has approvals from the Food and Drug Administration and the European Union. It’s selling in Europe and is set to be available here next month, according to Nobles.
Sutura plans to go public on the low-profile Pink Sheets by combining with Henderson, Nev.-based Millennium Holding Group Inc.
Millennium, which already trades on Pink Sheets, describes itself as an early stage development financial services company. The deal includes $15 million of equity financing from Fusion Capital Partners LLC, a Chicago investment firm.
Nobles declined to give specifics about Sutura’s finances but said he expects the company to sell “several million dollars worth of product” during its first year with Millennium.
Nobles started Sutura in 1996 with Egbert Ratering. Ratering previously worked for Cordis, a device maker that’s now part of Johnson & Johnson. Before Sutura, Nobles started Sterilis Inc., a Fountain Valley medical device company.
Nobles and Ratering funded Sutura themselves and later went to “friends and family,” Nobles said. Investors include John Tu and David Sun, cofounders of Fountain Valley-based computer memory products maker Kingston Technology Co., he said.
“John, being an old friend of mine, stepped up and offered to help,” Nobles said.
Nobles said he met Tu and Sun back when the three were starting up businesses on a stretch of Harbor Boulevard.
The three later had lunch where Nobles discussed Sutura, he said. The Kingston entrepreneurs “wanted to help the medical world” by investing in Sutura, Nobles said.
Other investors include Goldman Sachs & Co. and Morgan Stanley, according to Nobles.
Sutura targets catheter labs, cardiologists and radiologists for SuperStitch sales.
“The cardiologists and radiologists have really become the premier physicians treating coronary disease and peripheral vascular disease,” Nobles said. “They represent the majority of our customer base.”
SuperStitch faces big competition from Abbott Laboratories Inc. of suburban Chicago, which makes Perclose, a rival product.
But doctors have complained about Perclose, and Abbott has lost ground to St. Jude Medical Inc. of St. Paul, Minn., the market’s other big player. St. Jude offers Angio-Seal, a collagen-based product.
Sutura plans to compete with the larger rivals by emphasizing SuperStitch’s ease of usage, according to Nobles.
Sutura employs 32 people, including 28 in Fountain Valley. Besides Fountain Valley, it has sales offices in France and the Netherlands.
The company’s challenge is to build up manufacturing and sales, Nobles said.
Nobles said his goal was to “build a business,” though he said he has had interest among potential buyers.
“Our goal is to launch product and to sell product, to get the maximum value for our shareholders, whether it be as a public company or in a sale, you achieve that by proving your product on the market,” he said.
