Longeviti Neuro Solutions, a Baltimore County medical device startup, is moving its headquarters to Baltimore's Port Covington amid a $5 million round of fundraising.
CEO Jesse Christopher said the Hunt Valley-based company — which makes implants used in neurosurgery — saw 70% annual growth during the pandemic and is expected to reach profitability sometime in the next year or so.
“The main reason for the move is to scale operations for demand,” Christopher said, noting an increase in international sales. “We need to make more product.”
Forms filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show Longeviti has raised $4.75 million, but Christopher said the company has raised more since reporting that figure, for a total of about $5 million.
The company hasn’t signed the new lease yet, but Christopher said he’s proud to move the company’s headquarters from Hunt Valley to the Port Covington neighborhood in Baltimore, where it has a manufacturing facility. Developers had originally billed the area as a destination for technology and cybersecurity, though Evergreen Advisors recently scrapped its plan to move to the area.
Christoper said Longeviti's new headquarter will be inside City Garage, a former bus depot that was redeveloped in 2015 to be an innovation hub. South Duvall, a biotech real estate investment trust, bought an undetermined share of the 134,00-square-foot facility for an undisclosed amount in October, the BBJ reported last year.
When asked about Longeviti's move, Matt Brown of South Duvall replied with a statement touting City Garage as a "unique building that serves the needs of Baltimore’s modern, high-tech companies."
Christopher called Baltimore a "medical mega center, especially for neuro," noting the city's rich talent pool and its long history with neurosurgery. The discipline arguably began here more than a century ago with Harvey Cushing at Johns Hopkins.
Longeviti currently has about 35 employees, Christopher said, with 50 sales reps across the country. The company, which has ties to Johns Hopkins, raised $6 million in 2020 and $9.6 million in 2019.
“We’re forecasting to basically double in size every year for the next few years," Christopher said.
Longeviti believes its cranial implants could revolutionize the way doctors see inside their patients' brains.
When people get brain surgery, they sometimes need covers or implants for the hole in their skull. Christopher said there are 300,000 cranial surgeries in America each year.
Implants used in these surgeries are traditionally made from titanium, Christopher said, and the only way to see to inside that skull is with a CT scan, which requires a person to lie down on a machine for up to an hour and exposes them to a small amount radiation. Longeviti makes clear implants, which allows doctors to scan a person’s brain with an ultrasound machine in a matter of minutes.
“That window not only sees the brain,” Christopher said. “It can see activity in the brain.”
One of the devices made by Longeviti is a shunt, a device that is essentially a small tube allowing extra fluid in the brain — a condition called hydrocephalus — to drain to another part of the body.
The National Institutes of Health says it’s difficult to know how many people have hydrocephalus. People develop it at any point in life and symptoms vary, but some infants are born with the condition. The Hydrocephalus Association said the condition affects one out of every 770 newborns.
With a device like Longeviti’s, those kids could be spared dozens of CT scans throughout their life, Christopher said.
