{"id":96209,"date":"2014-09-05T09:46:06","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T13:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=96209"},"modified":"2015-12-03T14:32:59","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T19:32:59","slug":"tiny-heart-valve-has-big-potential-for-uconn-startup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/09\/tiny-heart-valve-has-big-potential-for-uconn-startup\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Heart Valve Has Big Potential for UConn Startup"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Eric<\/a>
Eric Sirois ’14 Ph.D., CEO of startup company Dura Biotech, which has developed a novel heart valve replacement. (Christopher LaRosa\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An unlikely combination of biomedical engineering and meticulous sewing skills has led to an innovative heart valve replacement that could save countless lives.<\/p>\n

Its maker, Dura Biotech, is a UConn Technology Incubation Program (TIP<\/a>) participant. Its CEO, Eric Sirois, received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at UConn earlier this year.<\/p>\n

This summer, Sirois and his research team enjoyed a particularly eventful week, when the company received two major awards, each worth $400,000. One was from the Connecticut Bioscience Innovation Fund (CBIF); the second was a federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant. The funding will enable the team to begin testing the product.<\/p>\n

Since the company was founded in 2012, Dura Biotech has focused on potentially game-changing innovations in the field of heart valves. One is the LowPro Valve, a transcatheter aortic valve 40 percent smaller than anything on the market.<\/p>\n

Because the catheter enters the femoral artery in the groin, patients don\u2019t need to undergo open heart surgery, a procedure that takes several weeks of recovery time and can pose great risks for many patients.<\/p>\n

Smaller is important<\/strong><\/p>\n

Catheters are traditionally measured in units known as French (one is equal to about one-third of a millimeter). Those on the market today are about 22 French.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next generation is about 18,\u201d says Sirois, \u201cand ours is 14.\u201d And with the recent funding, part of which will pay for animal testing, Sirois is confident they can bring the size down to 12 French.<\/p>\n

Smaller is important. It has been estimated that about 17,000 patients this year can\u2019t have the procedure because their arteries are too small for currently available catheters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re targeting older people, but we\u2019re thinking about using it for children, too, because many children are born with heart defects, but current valves are too large for them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Dura Biotech team, standing, from left: Adam Guerrette \u201915 (BUS), Joseph Calderan \u201914 MS, Rebecca Newman \u201916 (ENG), Chris Fitzpatrick \u201913 (ENG), Eric Sirois \u201914 Ph.D., and seated, Andrea Mandragouras \u201913 (ENG), and Jaclyn Mazzerella \u201914 (ENG). (Christopher LaRosa\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sirois is a veteran of the U.S. Navy. While he was figuring out what he wanted to do in his civilian life, he learned that UConn had one of the leading biomedical engineering departments in the U.S. That appealed to him, and he came to the University in 2005.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like analyzing systems,\u201d he says, \u201cand I wanted to look at the body like a machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

During his graduate studies, he enrolled in the entrepreneur program, taught by Hadi Bozorgmanesh, professor of practice in the School of Engineering.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I just figured that you have to go out into industry for 15 years or so first and then come back,\u201d Sirois says. \u201cBut Hadi has a whole different way of looking at it: \u2018Don\u2019t put off for one minute what you can start right now.\u2019 So, we founded the company and I haven\u2019t looked back since.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bozorgmanesh is confident Sirois can lead the company to success. He notes that while Sirois is “totally focused” on making Dura Biotech a success, he also spends time helping other start-ups and inspiring undergraduate students to become entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

Adaptive strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Sirois founded Dura Biotech in 2012 with Wei Sun, a former associate professor at UConn, the original idea wasn\u2019t to make a smaller valve, but a longer-lasting one (hence the \u201cDura\u201d in the company\u2019s name). They created the Dura Heart Valve, a valve that lasts four times longer than valves currently on the market.<\/p>\n

Last October, Sirois and his team took the Dura Heart Valve to the biggest transcatheter conference in the U.S. The company\u2019s poster was voted among the best, but drumming up interest in the product itself wasn\u2019t so easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked to the doctors \u2013 and they all didn\u2019t care,\u201d Sirois says. \u201cEveryone agreed that it was indeed more durable. But they also pointed out that most of their patients are old, so the valve\u2019s extended life span wasn\u2019t a big draw.\u201d<\/p>\n

For an extra dose of discouragement, an investor told them that clinical trials specifically testing for durability take up to eight years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they\u2019re super-expensive,\u201d Sirois says. \u201cInstead of $7 million, it would cost about $300 million. No one\u2019s going to invest in that. We were heartbroken, but some people suggested that if you could make it thicker and last four times as long, why not make it thinner and last the same amount of time?\u201d<\/p>\n

So they got to work on that. The secret is in the \u201ccrimped delivery\u201d design, in which part of the valve\u2019s material \u2013 the leaflet \u2013 is made thinner. With less material in the way, the valve can crimp more narrowly. A patent is pending on the technology.<\/p>\n

Sewing up the solution<\/strong><\/p>\n

Assembling the design requires sewing together three of the valve\u2019s main components. Considering the size of the components and the precision required, this is no easy task.<\/p>\n

Sirois, who had learned to sew uniforms in the military, tried making the valves himself. But they are tiny, and they have to be perfect.<\/p>\n

\"Jaclyn<\/a>
Jaclyn Mazzerella \u201914 (ENG) works on the LowPro Valve. (Christopher LaRosa\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So the team hired two lab technicians, Andrea Mandragouras and Jaclyn Mazzarella, who finally, after many, many attempts, perfected the necessary sewing technique.<\/p>\n

The change in strategy paid off. Within three months, they had a prototype, a marketing strategy, and a marketing niche carved out. They soon won a $10,000 Entrepreneur Innovation Award from CT Next, and a $50,000 Third Bridge award from the quasi-state organization Connecticut Innovation. And now, they have an additional $800,000 in recent awards.<\/p>\n

Sirois says the company hopes to raise seed investments of $2 to $3 million next year. He estimates that the company will need at least $10 million to get his device through regulatory approval in Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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