Traditionally, leaking heart valves are repaired with open-heart surgery. An Atlanta-based startup is looking to meet the clinical needs of patients who are too at-risk for that procedure.
Nyra Medical Inc., a medical device company spun out of Emory University, is developing technology that fixes leaking heart valves by placing an implant into the heart. It inserts image-guided catheters, or thin tubes, into the bloodstream through an incision in the body’s groin to repair the valves.
“About 35% to 60% of patients who survive heart failure develop this problem,” said Nyra Founder and CEO Murali Padala. “Developing valve leakage becomes detrimental, meaning these patients tend to die or have repeated hospitalizations.”
The company has raised $12 million of a $20 million raise for research and development. A medical device company, which Padala declined to name, led the round. Other investors include Minnesota-based Vensana Capital, Boston-based Broadview Ventures, Maryland-based Epidarex Capital and the Georgia Research Alliance Venture Fund LLC.
The company is one of several Atlanta-based medical device startups that raised venture capital in the last year. Medical device company BioCircuit Technologies raised $9 million in September to commercialize and develop its nerve repair and therapy devices. Medical startup OXOS Medical, which makes portable X-ray devices, reached $20 million in seed funding in May.
Once the company’s technology is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to perform clinical trials, it will receive the remaining $8 million, Padala said. Prior to the recent raise, the company received funding from the National Institute of Health, the Georgia Research Alliance and the Coulter Foundation.
Padala expects approval for clinical trials within 12 months.
The company has demonstrated its technology effectiveness in preclinical trials, Padala said. It anticipates approval for commercialization between 2028 and 2029. At that point, Padala expects the company will be acquired by a larger medical company to commercialize the technology.
Nearly 6.5 million Americans over 20 years old have heart failure with an estimated 960,000 new cases annually, according to the Heart Failure Society of America. Many are too at-risk for open-heart surgery, due to problems such as lung conditions or diabetes. This creates a $5 billion market potential for Nyra, said Padala.
Other medical devices provide similar treatments. Padala says unlike Nyra, they don’t preserve how heart valves are structured prior to procedure, making their durability questionable.
In 2019, the company spun out of Emory University, where Padala found the software through lab research. Padala has been an Emory professor since 2010. Since July, he has served as the school’s director of cardiothoracic research laboratories.
The company consists of four staff members. In the next six months, Padala says it looks to expand to as much as 15 employees. Those roles will be in biomedical engineering and regulatory compliance.
Nyra has an office in Midtown close to Technology Enterprise Park. Research and development for the company also takes place in Minnesota and Germany.
