Two startups on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus have launched with seed funding from local investors.
Vicora and Ampullae are the brainchild of Rick Ducharme, a medical device executive recruited to Buffalo’s Jacobs Institute five years ago.
Vicora solves a specific problem in the treatment of many vascular diseases, such as pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis and stroke. The problem is the existing instrument used to unplug the blood vessel, a catheter, becomes clogged and only unplugs the clot about 45% of the time.
Ducharme is working to build a catheter equipped with proprietary technology that allows it to vibrate ever so slightly. The theory is that it will greatly improve on a tool found in almost every hospital in the world.
“This is similar to a lot of other industries where technologies are getting smarter by integrating electronics,” Ducharme said. “We’re bringing that idea into the medical industry.”
Ampullae’s technology is a flexible guidewire sensor that acts as an indicator of how much force is being applied to the tip of an endovascular device.
Vicora and Ampullae have closed on a round of seed funding from Egret, the local investment vehicle for medical device startups that debuted publicly earlier this year. The investment group includes S2 Venture Partners and Chuck Lannon's investment network. The funding amount was not disclosed.
Egret is led by CEO Matt Colpoys and executive chairman William Maggio, and posits that leading medical device companies can be built here with the right support. Ducharme is chief scientific officer for Vicora and Ampullae and also is vice president of engineering for the Jacobs Institute. Colpoys will lead both Vicora and Ampullae as CEO.
Vicora has entered into the JI’s Idea to Reality Center, an accelerator program that helps commercialize vascular medical device technologies.
Through the i2r program and with the seed funding, the goal is take Vicora’s technology from early development work to clinical trials within the next 15 months.
“Vicora holds the promise to activate catheters beyond their current value simply as conduits to deliver implements into a variety of organ systems in the body," said Adnan Siddiqui, Jacobs Institute CEO and CMO.
There is plenty of work to be done. But Ducharme has been waiting for just such a challenge.
“Any improvement (to existing catheters) is massively significant,” he said. “We’re talking about serious, life-threatening diseases.”
Maggio said he formed Egret to help entrepreneurial people both from clinical and non-clinical backgrounds and expand innovation on the medical campus. This investment matches that mission.
“I’m hoping to support that ecosystem on the campus,” he said.
Vicora and Ampullae are among 28 local companies to acknowledge a private, growth-oriented round of funding this year. The list includes Torch Labs ($40 million), Centivo ($30 million), Circuit Clinical ($29 million), Kangarootime ($26 million), SparkCharge ($22 million), CleanFiber ($8.5 million), PostProcess Technologies ($5 million), VeriTX ($4.5 million), HELIXintel ($4 million), Blockfusion ($2.6 million), ShearShare ($2.3 million), Azuna ($2.5 million), Patient Pattern ($2 million), OneBridge Benefits ($2 million), BetterMynd ($1 million), Empire Hemp Co. ($1 million), CaHill Tech ($1 million), Buffalo Film Works ($750,000), FavorDrop ($725,000), Ellicottville Greens ($300,000), Swift Rails ($255,000) AireXpert ($125,000), Arbol ($110,000), Lemma Labs ($100,000), Timberhut (undisclosed), Flox (undisclosed), Ognomy (undisclosed) and Vicora/Ampullae (undisclosed).
Dan Miner contributed to this article.
