After a career working for a large pharmaceutical company, Dushyanth Surakanti set out to chart his own path.
Surakanti's background at Dr. Reddy's Laboratories includes developing product portfolios from scratch, a process that often involves combing through university research portfolios. This was a natural place to start when Surakanti set out to form Sparta Biomedical in Morrisville with co-founder Dimitrios Angelis.
During this process of reviewing intellectual property within university research portfolios, Surakanti identified an opportunity at Duke University that filled an unmet medical need and could be developed on a relatively short timeframe. This is how Sparta began working with Duke chemistry professor Benjamin Wiley, who serves as the company's chief technology officer and lead inventor.
Sparta is developing a chemically engineered cartilage platform that can be used to develop cartilage-like implants for various joints in the body. In its lead program, the company is developing an implant for patients with knee osteoarthritis called Ormi. But the company sees potential for the technology in additional uses.
"What we have in this technology is a platform ... that can be used in various areas of the body," Surakanti said.
Since spinning the technology out of Duke, Sparta has focused on completing the work necessary to move this lead program into a human clinical study. The work is supported by a $5 million seed round the startup closed in late 2021. To further its efforts, the company has set up lab and office space on Airport Boulevard.
Sparta has also benefited from its lead program receiving "breakthrough device" designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The designation provides Sparta with more opportunities to work with the FDA through product development.
The company was also recently accepted into an accelerator program of MedTech Innovator. The firm is one of 61 startups to be accepted into the accelerator's 2023 cohort, out of more than 1,000 applicants. Over the last decade, more than 500 companies have completed the program and went on to secure $6.8 billion in follow-on funding.
This program will help Sparta, a small team of five employees, connect with others in the medical device industry with experience in areas like clinical development and manufacturing, while also offering an opportunity to earn some non-dilutive funding. Importantly, the program also raises Sparta's visibility with venture capital firms and larger companies.
"For us, MedTech Innovator will be very beneficial for getting us in front of those in the medtech or orthopedics space that haven't heard about us," Surakanti said. "The visibility will be tremendous."
This visibility will help the company as it takes its next steps toward filing an investigational device exemption with the FDA in the fourth quarter of this year. This would allow Sparta to move its technology into clinical trials, a process that would take a few years, including a period to enroll patients and then about two years of observing patients.
To support the initial stages of this clinical effort, Sparta is in the process of raising $4 million. After the study launches, and the startup has some early data, the company would look next year to launch a Series A round somewhere in the range of $25 million to $27 million. This funding would support Sparta up to the point of submitting a regulatory filing with the FDA.
Sparta is a few years away from a potential regulatory approval and having a product ready to hit the market. And whether the company goes it alone or looks for a partner at that time remains to be determined. Surakanti said both options have merit and that the company will consider which approach makes the device the most accessible to patients in the fastest and most efficient way.
"We believe this is a breakthrough technology," Surakanti said. "We want to make sure this gets into surgeons' hands ... as quickly as possible."