On March 5, Minnesota Twins baseball great Kirby Puckett was felled by a hemorrhagic stroke, caused when internal bleeding from a weakened artery put pressure on his brain. These “bleeding strokes” often occur when a cerebral aneurysm—an abnormal bulge on the wall of a brain artery—bursts. Though less common than the ischemic or blood clot–induced strokes, hemorrhagic “brain attacks” strike more than 30,000 Americans annually, according to the American Society of Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology. Ten to 15 percent of those people die before they reach the hospital; 50 percent die within the first 30 days after the bleeding occurs.
Many cerebral aneurysms can be detected via medical imaging scans and treated. Now a Twin Cities company is preparing to deploy what it believes is the most formidable defense yet against brain attacks. “We have what we believe is a game-changing technology,” says Eric Timko, president and CEO of Maple Grove–based NeuroVasx, Inc. “It is clearly a paradigm shift in the minimally invasive technology for cerebral aneurysms.”
Currently, there are two methods for treating a brain aneurysm. One is a highly invasive neurosurgical clipping procedure, in which a portion of the patient’s skull is temporarily removed and a small clip is applied across the neck of the aneurysm, thereby eliminating blood flow into the weakened area. The other is a less invasive method called endovascular embolization, or “coiling,” in which miniature platinum coils are routed through a microcatheter and along a guidewire into the aneurysm. The coils pack the aneurysm and reduce the flow of blood that can cause the bulge to break.
NeuroVasx’s innovation is using a polymeric strand instead of platinum. Called cPAX, the strand is inserted using the same minimally invasive procedure employed in coiling. The ultrasoft material, which Timko likens to a cooked spaghetti noodle, can fill about 60 percent of the space. The standard packing density for coils, he says, is between 25 and 35 percent. In other words, the higher density of the softer material can better reduce the blood flow. “We believe platinum is the past and polymer is the way of the future,” Timko says
NeuroVasx, which was founded in 1997 by cPAX co-developer Jeffrey Lee (now the company’s vice president of research and development), hopes to get FDA approval for cPAX by early 2007 and begin marketing the product shortly thereafter. “Our market potential for endovascular treatment of the brain is probably in the neighborhood of $700 million,” says Timko, who was hired as NeuroVasx’s CEO and president in 2004 to prepare the company for this marketing push. Before joining NeuroVasx, he was the president of New York–based Carl Zeiss Surgical and vice president of Siemens Medical Systems in Pennsylvania.
To commercialize cPAX, he adds, NeuroVasx will need to raise about $10 million on top of the $12.5 million the firm has pulled in since its inception. In the meantime, NeuroVasx will continue to introduce its new device to physicians in the field.
“We’ll work it into the market through our scientific advisory board,” Timko says. “The feedback has ranged from exciting to overwhelming, so we already have a nice buzz in the marketplace.”
