A year after its Vivistim system became the first vagus nerve stimulation implant approved by the FDA for use in stroke rehabilitation, MicroTransponder has raked in an oversubscribed funding round to continue developing and commercializing the device.
The series E topped out at $73 million, the Texas-based company announced this week. It finalized the round with $20 million more than originally expected, just a few months after it first closed the series E with $53 million in June.
US Venture Partners led the financing, joined by a group of new and existing investors that included GPG Ventures, Exceller Hunt Ventures, Osage University Partners, Action Potential Venture Capital and the Vertical Group.
The Vivistim system centers around what MicroTransponder has dubbed its “paired VNS” technology, since it pairs vagus nerve stimulation with traditional post-stroke rehabilitation activities.
After the device is implanted under the skin in the upper left chest area in a simple outpatient procedure, it delivers gentle stimulation to the brain via the vagus nerve. The stimulation is meant to both strengthen and reshape neural pathways—for example, in its FDA-approved indication, to revamp the motor pathways that may have stalled due to an ischemic stroke, limiting arm and hand function.
According to a study published last year, stroke survivors who underwent a combination of in-clinic intense physical therapy and the vagus nerve stimulation treatment for six weeks experienced two to three times more improvement in their upper limb motor impairment and function compared to those who only completed six weeks of intense physical therapy.
Additionally, after another three months of home-based therapy, the number of participants in the Vivistim group who had achieved a clinically meaningful improvement in their arm and hand impairments was about twice that of those in the control group.
Following the FDA’s approval of the neurostimulator last summer, the system was implanted in its first commercial patient in May of this year at the University of Southern California’s Keck Medicine.
Alongside closing its overstuffed series E funding, MicroTransponder’s announcement this week also included the expansion of its C-suite.
The company’s first chief operating officer is Prashant Rawat, who previously held the same title during the more than a decade he spent at nerve stimulation device developer Mainstay Medical. Prior to that, Rawat held leadership roles at CSF Therapeutics, CVRx and Boston Scientific.
At MicroTransponder, Rawat will be tasked with both scaling up Vivistim’s ongoing commercial rollout and overseeing the continued development of the system and its future iterations, with an eye toward landing additional FDA clearances for the technology.
“As we embark on the next stage of our company's progress, I am certain he will guide us diligently as COO in identifying and demonstrating the vast potential of Paired VNS Therapy in stroke rehabilitation, as well as for other applications,” said CEO Richard Foust.