Silicon Valley Innovation Comes to Advanced Wound Care

The wound care industry has seen a proliferation of Negative Pressure Wound Therapy products in the past few years, as companies rush to capitalize on the widespread acceptance of the therapy.

California-based Spiracur, Inc. believes that companies have generally taken the same approach to their product design – an electrically powered machine to generate vacuum, a separate canister to store the exudate, and a multi-step dressing kit atop the wound. New president and CEO of Spiracur, Inc. Gary Restani believes that is about to change with the company’s product.

Spiracur is looking to bring Silicon Valley innovation to advanced wound care. Restani says their FDA-cleared SNaP™ (Smart Negative Pressure) System changes the approach of how and to whom NPWT is being delivered. The design eliminates the need for electric power, making the delivery mechanism completely silent and the size of a cell phone. The product further boasts a lightweight (less than 3 oz) and disposable design, which can easily fit under a patient’s clothing. The company has seen this translate to significantly improved patient acceptance and compliance of the therapy.

The thought is to give wound care clinics convenient access to NPWT therapy for their patients, says Restani.

“Right now, treating a small chronic wound with NPWT in the clinic setting is a hassle, and just doesn’t occur very often even with good clinical study evidence that it can help patients,” says Restani. “The SNaP™ System was designed to make treating these wounds simple with an off-the-shelf solution that can be applied in under 10 minutes.”
The idea was born out of the Stanford BioDesign Innovation program, where the three founders originally came together, according to Dr. Kenton Fong, Spiracur’s CSO, who was a plastic surgeon at Stanford at the time.

“The focus of this program at Stanford is to bring significant innovation to large clinical needs in medicine,” Dr. Fong says. “As a big believer in NPWT myself, it was frustrating for me not to see it utilized for smaller, yet highly refractory wounds. The delivery mechanism for traditional NPWT devices was simply too bulky and procurement too cumbersome. We felt there had to be a better way.”

The system uses moistened, antimicrobial gauze as the contact layer. This is topped with an integrated, custom hydrocolloid dressing that is applied in a single step.

“We had the ability to start from a blank sheet, when coming up with the system,” Restani says. “Using this new, integrated hydrocolloid dressing provides us a robust seal that is also good for the patient’s periwound skin. And the integration of the tubing nozzle into the dressing helps clinicians apply it in just one step, saving them valuable time in the clinic.”

The company is attracting the attention of blue-chip investors and industry veterans alike. Despite the tough financing climate in 2009, Spiracur was able to raise over $20 million from three top venture capital firms, Kleiner Perkins, De Novo Ventures and New Leaf Venture Partners. As an example, Kleiner’s previous investments include Google, Genentech and Amazon.com. They also have long time wound care executive, Chris Fashek, on their Board of Directors.

Spiracur also attracted industry veteran Restani to the team. Restani, who headed up Convatec, Inc. for much of the last decade, became the new President and CEO of Spiracur earlier this year.

“I was attracted to the passion and quality of the Spiracur team and to the unique opportunity the SNaP™ System offers to patients and clinicians,” he says. “I’ve dedicated many years to wound care and I’m very excited about our potential here.”

Spiracur has spent much of the past two years on clinical studies. The first commercial units were shipped last fall and the company plans to slowly ramp up their commercial effort this year.