With the obesity rate soaring, so too has the number of medical-device makers devising products to lower it. One of the newer entrants is St. Paul–based EnteroMedics, which is developing an implantable device that uses electrical pulses to curb the appetite.
The device is called the VBLOC, short for vagal blocking for obesity control. The vagus nerves, which extend from the brain to the abdominal organs, help manage hunger by triggering the body’s “full” feeling. In VBLOC therapy, small electrodes, which are controlled by a pacemaker-like neuroregulator, are implanted in the vagus nerves just above the meeting point of the esophagus and stomach. “VBLOC down-regulates, or turns off, the main nerve that controls how your stomach handles food, how your digestive enzymes are released into the intestine, and how hungry you feel,” says Mark Knudson, EnteroMedics’ president and CEO. The patient feels full for longer stretches and therefore eats less.
Roughly 88 million Americans suffer from obesity. The most common treatments are bariatric surgeries, such as laparoscopic banding, in which an adjustable band is placed around the top of the stomach to reduce its capacity; and gastric bypass surgery, which permanently reduces the size of the stomach. Then there’s vagotomy, which partially or totally severs the vagus nerves. Knudson says that the VBLOC device, which is implanted in an outpatient procedure, is a less invasive alternative to “anatomy-altering” surgery. When the VBLOC system is turned off, “the patient returns completely back to normal physiology and anatomy,” he says.
Knudson launched EnteroMedics in 2002 out of Venturi Group, his business incubator. Venturi has also spawned Restore Medical, a manufacturer of implants used to treat obstructive sleep apnea.
EnteroMedics has corralled $64.2 million in financing, including $45.2 million in venture capital that it received last summer to do VBLOC clinical trials in the United States. Knudson expects those trials to start this year. The company has already completed a round of feasibility testing in Europe. Food and Drug Administration approval is about three years away.
