IlluminOss gets funding for clinical trial testing

When Robert A. Rabiner launched IlluminOss Medical Inc. a little more than a year ago, the company’s staff consisted of himself and a few student interns from Rhode Island School of Design.
Today the East Providence company employs ten full-time workers and a bevy of consultants –and could double its work force soon – thanks to $11.2 million in new financing that will be used for clinical trials of its new medical technology.
“We’re not going to staff-up indiscriminately,” Rabiner, the company’s CEO, told Providence Business News last week. “But we will be hiring more people in accordance with our timeline and clinical program.”
At this point, IlluminOss is focused on a single technology, dubbed the IlluminOss Orthopedic System, which could allow surgeons to stabilize bone fractures with glue rather than cumbersome plates and pins.
The device works by inserting a balloon catheter filled with polymer glue into the bone; exposure to a special-frequency light then causes the glue to harden. The new technology would be less invasive than conventional surgery and could allow patients to return to normal activities faster, according to Rabiner, who invented the device.
IlluminOss recently announced it has raised $$11.2 million in Series B funding, through New Leaf Venture Partners and return investors Mieza Capital and Foundation Medical Partners. The company has raised a total of $13.75 million to date.
The latest cash infusion will pay for the testing required for new medical technologies. “The intent is to complete our preclinicals and human clinicals and get regulatory approval” next year, Rabiner said.
The CEO is no stranger to the process. He founded two other medical-device companies earlier in his career and has held executive positions at several others. He has 19 patents, with another 50 applications pending.
And he’s done it all with no medical training. “I’m a history and political science major,” he said. “But I was fortunate in that I grew up in a family that believed there’s nothing you can’t do if you try.”
Rabiner sold his previous company, Tiverton-based Selva Medical, in October 2006, and then decided against early retirement. Within a few months he was back at work, tinkering with the IlluminOss device in a small facility in Middletown. For office help, he turned to the internship program at Rhode Island School of Design.
“The students there are not only artists,” he said, “they’re multi-functional, talented people, with a host of skills required for a start up.”
Before long, IllunimOss had raised $2.75 in its first round of funding, and enlisted Dr. Arnold-Peter Weiss, a professor of orthopedics at Brown University, as chief medical officer. More professional staff came on board and last December the company relocated to its current, larger facility in East Providence.
Rabiner predicts regulatory approval of the IlluminOss device by the second quarter of 2009, but adds there’s no certainty. “I stopped looking into the crystal ball a long time ago,” he said.
When that happens, the company will begin researching new uses for the technology. Current plans call for using the device to repair fingers, wrists, collar bones, and other smaller bones, but the company hopes it could eventually be used on fractures to arms and legs as well. “As we get more and more testing data, we’ll have secondary and tertiary opportunities for using our product for weight-bearing bones,” he said.
Rabiner also admits he is brainstorming other new products, though for now the focus will remain on the bone-repair system.
And he won’t speculate what will happen once the IlluminOss system is approved and ready for market.
“There are lots of opportunities,” he said. “We could establish our own sales force. We could work with someone on a distributor basis … For now, we have an excellent team and excellent financial backing. We’re moving according to plan.” •