Novate: Re-Newing The IVC Filter Market

Article preview from IN VIVO - September, 2013

Serial medtech entrepreneurs Chas Taylor and Paul Gilson founded Novate Medical Ltd. to develop a bioconvertible inferior vena cava filter – it protects patients from pulmonary embolisms during a critical interval, then integrates into the vessel wall. There is no need to retrieve it, a benefit that goes far beyond the economics of avoiding a second procedure.

Novate: Re-Newing The IVC Filter Market

Article preview from IN VIVO - September, 2013

The market for inferior vena cava filters grew rapidly in the past year, perhaps too rapidly in the eyes of some clinicians who fear overuse has created a host of downstream problems. Two medical device veterans founded Novate to develop a new type of filter to alleviate those concerns.

Fresh from the sale of their former start-up, device entrepreneurs Chas Taylor and Paul Gilson were contemplating their next venture when they ran into a vascular surgeon of their acquaintance. The surgeon had a particular clinical issue with a widely used device – the inferior vena cava (IVC) filters used to capture blood clots in the bloodstream before they become potentially lethal pulmonary embolisms.

The surgeon had implanted temporary IVC filters in a whole series of patients, in particular, trauma patients, but those filters were never removed as they should have been, once the risk of embolism had subsided. His problem was not an unusual one. According to various estimates, in 50% to 75% of cases temporary IVC filters aren’t retrieved as they should be, largely owing to the fragmentation of care of the various kinds of patients who receive filters, which causes them to be lost to follow-up. Failure to retrieve filters in a timely manner increases the risk of adverse effects including filter fracture or migration.

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