Oraya, a secretive Menlo Park, Calif., medical-device startup, has struck again. The company raised $18 million in what is presumably a second funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Investors included Synergy Life Science Partners (see yesterday's coverage of this newish VC firm here) and Essex Woodlands Health Ventures. We covered Oraya's first round of funding last June.
VentureWire says the company is working on some sort of unspecified ophthalmology device, which is certainly more than we knew last year. Oraya's founder and CEO is Michael Gertner, a surgeon and serial medical-device entrepreneur who is also a consultant to the Biodesign Program and Department of Surgery at Stanford. (He's also an adjunct partner at Essex Woodlands, which has a somewhat more detailed -- and possibly out-of-date -- bio for him here.)
Eye disease would be something of a departure for Gertner, who has previously founded five other device startups, all of which still appear to be keeping themselves largely under wraps (for instance, any Web sites tend to be uninformative stubs):
- Medlogics Device Corporation -- Develops non-polymer drug-coated stents for treating arterial blockages. Founded in 2003.
- Allux Medical -- Develops electro-optical devices for allergic rhinitis (hay fever). Founded in 2004.
- Minimus Surgical Systems -- Develops unspecified electromedical equipment, although these patent applications suggest the company is working on implantable, remote-controlled balloon devices that reduce stomach volume for the treatment of obesity.
- Hydrocardia -- Apparently named after an obscure medical term for excess fluid in the pericardial sac that surrounds the heart. No Web site.
- Gem Biosystems -- No further information beyond the fact that it raised $1 million from Essex Woodland in 2006
A quick look through Gertner's patent applications and issued patents doesn't turn up too many additional clues as to what Oraya might be doing. He does have one issued patent and at least two applications dealing with what appears to be a valved "fistula," a blood-vessel graft used to ease the trauma of routine needle insertions in kidney dialysis -- but of course that has nothing to do with ophthalmology. (In fact, this technology could easily be related to Gem's business.)
In any event, it's intriguing to note that even the oldest of Gertner's companies appears to have no marketed products and continues to fly mostly under the radar. Which suggests to me either that Gertner or his investors simply have a real passion for secrecy -- which is entirely understandable -- or that perhaps things haven't gone quite as well as planned. In any event, Gertner looks like someone worth keeping an eye on. (Hat tip to Mark Wendman, who first pointed out Gertner's work to me.)
According to VentureWire, the new funding will carry Oraya into clinical trials. Gertner told the newswire only that the company expects to begin human tests of its devices "shortly," so who knows what that means.