Device stimulating treatment option

MORE THAN SKIN DEEP: Perfuzia Medical CEO Sagi Brink-Danan founded the company in 2009 with fellow Israeli ex-pat Shai Schubert. The company, along with Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital, was recently awarded a state grant for its tissue-wound work. / PBN FILE PHOTO/HILARY ROSENTHAL
MORE THAN SKIN DEEP: Perfuzia Medical CEO Sagi Brink-Danan founded the company in 2009 with fellow Israeli ex-pat Shai Schubert. The company, along with Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital, was recently awarded a state grant for its tissue-wound work. / PBN FILE PHOTO/HILARY ROSENTHAL

(Updated May 31, 2012)

Perfuzia Medical Inc. CEO Sagi Brink-Danan was looking for the kind of idea you could build a company around and fellow Israeli ex-pat Shai Schubert had a big one: technology that could potentially ease the suffering of thousands of people with chronic tissue wounds such as burns and bedsores.

Schubert, a Harvard-trained vascularbiologist, realized that the existing treatment for chronic tissue wounds in many cases did little for patients. The reason the wounds become chronic in the first place is oxygen deprivation, Brink-Danan said, and treatments that deal with the surface of the skin don’t solve the problem.
“He realized that cell therapies were 20 years away from the clinic and there must be something we can do to help these patients,” Brink-Danan said. “We looked into other options and asked why these wounds don’t heal. The answer was: they don’t get enough blood.”
The solution Brink-Danan and Schubert came up with, and founded Perfuzia Medical to develop, was a device to stimulate blood flow to wounded tissue through mechanical vibrations.
After initial tests of the treatment were encouraging, Perfuzia, Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital were recently awarded $200,000 from the state of Rhode Island to take the device into full-scale clinical testing.
“That is a tremendous step for us that will allow us to do a very well-designed, top-level study,” Brink-Danan said.
While looking into the cause of the problem, Brink-Danan, who came to the United States 10 years ago and got an MBA from Babson College, also realized the scale of the issue and, as a result, the potential market of a product that could address it.
Although a low-profile problem compared with many health conditions, chronic wounds affect between 7-8 million people in the Unites States each year with a cost of about $20 billion.
As Brink-Danan pointed out, it was complications from a pressure-ulcer infection that caused the death of actor Christopher Reeve, who was well-known in Israel for his work there on stem-cell research.
The first prototype that Perfuzia developed for healing wounds was about the size of a shoebox and, while it showed promise, was awkward, heavy and difficult to use on a large scale. The current prototype the company is testing is about the size of a small cellphone, flexible, and can run for about a week on a single battery charge.
On a basic level, the device works by stimulating blood flow to the area of a wound, which in turn encourages the development of blood vessels that help to regenerate the tissue in the area.
Despite all the work that has gone into Perfuzia’s chronic-wound-treatment device so far, the technology is still two to three years from commercialization, with the clinical trials taking place at Rhode Island Hospital the biggest step in the process.
While the company waits to see what will happen in the trials, Brink-Danan is looking to strengthen the business and expand its base of patents.
He first moved to Providence when his wife took a job at Brown University, but he had the choice to start the business elsewhere, including Boston, and chose Rhode Island because there appeared to be more breathing space for a small startup like his.
He described the Collaborative Research Grant from the state as the kind of thing that would be very difficult to secure in Massachusetts because of the intense competition among biotech companies.
“In Rhode Island maybe you have five companies like ours and in Massachusetts there might be 500,” Brink-Danan said.
He also likes the fact that Providence is much less expensive than Boston, but less than an hour away from that city’s industry leaders and venture capitalists.
Perfuzia Medical is also part of the connection Rhode Island has been working to establish with Israel, which included a trade mission last fall.
If the clinical trials go as Brink-Danan believes they will, the next step for Perfuzia Medical will be to figure out the best way to scale up the business, which has already attracted some seed-stage investment, and manufacture the device.
Brink-Danan has been in talks with some manufacturers, but Perfuzia could also form a strategic partnership with a larger industry player to take advantage of their marketing and sales channels.
“There are several options, but the real focus is on the trials,” Brink-Danan said. “Once the data is good, the market just opens up.” •

COMPANY PROFILE
Perfuzia Medical Inc.
OWNERS: Sagi Brink-Danan and Shai Schubert
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Medical-device
creator
LOCATION: 44 Sargent Ave., Providence
EMPLOYEES: 5
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2009
ANNUAL SALES: NA

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The May 28 Main Street story on Perfuzia Medical misspelled the name of the company’s co-founder and his area of area of study at Harvard. The correct spelling is Shai Schubert and he studied vascular biology. A reference to cost of treating chronic wounds in the United States should have been $20 billion per year.

 

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