REVA: In Bioresorbable Stents, As Things Change, Will The Value Remain The Same?

Article preview from IN VIVO - November, 2011

REVA Medical started almost 14 years ago as a bare metal stent company, only to run into the drug-eluting stent (DES) revolution. In response to the DES boom, the company reinvented itself as a bioresorbable stent company and then added a drug-eluting capability. However, until the late-stent thrombosis risk of DES emerged in 2006, bioresorbable stents were largely irrelevant. REVA has survived the ups and downs of the device financing environment by adopting creative solutions, including an evolving relationship with a strategic partner and ultimately an Australian IPO.

REVA: In Bioresorbable Stents, As Things Change, Will The Value Remain The Same?

Article preview from IN VIVO - November, 2011

The company is just now reentering the clinic with its pivotal trial, which is both a testament to its perseverance and a sign of the many challenges still ahead, not the least of which being whether REVA’s innovation will ultimately be rewarded.

The path of most medical device start-ups, like that of innovation itself, is not straight and narrow, but rather full of unexpected twists and turns to which a company need adapt in order to survive. No device company embodies that course more than San Diego-based REVA Medical Inc. Launched originally in 1998 as an effort to develop a thin-strutted metal stent and capitalize on the initial bare metal stent boom through an acquisition by a strategic player, after nearly 14 years, REVA has transformed itself into a bioresorbable stent company that is only now looking to reenter the clinic with its pivotal trial.

In the course of this journey, REVA has been both chameleon and dinosaur – adapting to ever-changing clinical and market conditions, while also being among a dying breed of start-ups able to survive the ever-increasing time it takes to develop innovative technology. In interventional cardiology, after starting life as a bare metal stent company, REVA was confronted with the drug-eluting stent revolution, which seemingly made both bare metal and bioresorbable stents irrelevant. In response, the company reinvented itself, looking first to develop a bare bioresorbable stent and then adding a drug. When the late-stent thrombosis risk was identified with drug-eluting stents, bioresorbables became fashionable again. In the process, however, REVA ran into problems during its initial pilot trial that forced the company to redesign both its stent and the underlying polymer material.

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