Press Release

Thu, Oct 14, 2004

Bone Solutions Seeks $2M for Bone Adhesive Development

Bone adhesive technology Bone Solutions Inc. hopes to raise $2 million of funding by February...

Bone adhesive technology company Bone Solutions Inc. hopes to raise $2 million of funding by February, Chief Executive Tony Copp told VentureWire.

In the near-term, Copp said the company will secure around $500,000, of which $200,000 has already been committed by existing board members. Founded last May, Bone Solutions has received around $250,000 to date from angel investors.

As part of its fundraising, Bone Solutions will present at Medtech Insight's conference of early-stage medical technology companies in Boston on October 21. Copp said the company has already spoken to venture capitalists as well as potential strategic partners.

Bone Solution's board includes Drew Diaz, the senior vice president of worldwide sales at Criticare Systems Inc.; Wade Hampton, vice president of America's sales and executive vice president of the medical business unit of Luminis Inc.; individual investor John Albers; former executive at International Business Machines Corp. Jim McNamara; Bone Solutions Founder, President and Chairman Tom Lally; and Copp

The money will be used to complete FDA testing and clinical trials, cover marketing expenses and "get to the point where we are delivering our product in some key markets and getting our name out there," Copp said.

Dallas-based Bone Solution's adhesive products involve novel, injectable cements under development for use in bone-to-bone and bone-to-ligament indications. The magnesium-based adhesives involve a slight expansion, which marketed calcium phosphate adhesives are incapable of, and are non-toxic and re-absorbable.

Lally described the adhesive's initial use as repairing injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, in the knee. Instead of commonly used screws, the cement is injected into the area, and expands and adheres to hold the ligament in place. Lally said, "We can get the cement to be reabsorbed about the same time the bone is forming" through the adjustment of the absorption rate of the adhesive. Shoulder, elbow and other extremity indications are also potentially viable markets in the near-term.

Following further animal and clinical testing, and 510K approval for the adhesive as a bone anchoring device, a bone filler device and/or a bone cement, Lally said that optimistically, the adhesive could make it onto the market within a year. He added that the company would like to conduct the manufacturing, sales and distribution of the product on its own – covering a market, including ACL surgery and other extremities procedures, which Copp estimated at around $1.5 billion worldwide. Dallas-based Bone Solution's adhesives were developed using the same chemistry as cements used for such things as road repair and water plugs. More specifically, Lally developed the company's cements from technology associated with bridge patches supplied by Bindan Corp., which owns a portion of Bone Solution.

Lally said additional future uses include the delivery of antibiotics and stem cells, among other therapeutic agents, through the injection of treatment-infused cements that adhere to a bone or ligament, leach out the biologic and then themselves reabsorb.

http://www.bonesolutionsinc.com

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