Healionics Spins Out Ophthalmic Device Company In Europe

Article preview from Start-Up - October, 2012

Companies offering broadly applicable biomaterials platforms often have an identify problem and with that, a funding problem. Seattle-based Healionics Corp. is solving that problem by creating clinically focused spin-outs that just happen to be in Europe where they can capture non-dilutive funding from regional governments. The company’s first spin-out, iSTAR Medical SA, is working on ophthalmic devices, specifically a suprachoroidal drainage shunt for glaucoma. In September, iSTAR was awarded a €3.6 million ($4.7 million) grant from Belgium’s Région Wallonne government.

Healionics Spins Out Ophthalmic Device Company In Europe

Article preview from Start-Up - October, 2012

Companies offering broadly applicable biomaterials platforms often have an identity crisis and with that, a funding challenge. Seattle-based Healionics Corp. believes it is solving that problem by creating and growing clinically focused spin-outs in Europe where public-private funding partnerships are more readily available for start-ups. The company’s first spin-out, iSTAR Medical SA, is working on ophthalmic devices, and recently announced CE mark approval for STARflo, a suprachoroidal drainage shunt for glaucoma. In September, iSTAR was awarded a €3.6 million ($4.7 million) collaborative grant from Belgium’s Région Wallonne government.

Healionics was founded in 2007 to develop a synthetic three-dimensional precision-pore biomaterial called STAR, for “Sphere Templated Angiogenic Regeneration.”  The material has three properties that suit it well for medical implants, according to CEO and chairman Michel Alvarez. It reduces the foreign body response to an implant in terms of scarring or encapsulation, it tends to neovascularize, and it has inherent antimicrobial properties because macrophages remain active in its pore structure. The material achieves this by virtue of its patented geometry, in particular its porosity. The pore sizes in the material cause it to be pro-angiogenic (to support the growth of new capillaries) even without the addition of growth factors.

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