A tiny treatment for congestive heart failure got a $3.75 million boost this week.
Medtronic Inc., of Minneapolis, Minn., made the investment in NanoCor Therapeutics of Chapel Hill. Medtronic receives certain rights to exclusively license NanoCor's treatment for congestive heart failure.
NanoCor's goal is to treat congestive heart failure less invasively, which it hopes to accomplish with a nano-sized delivery system developed by Asklepios BioPharmaceutical Inc. (AskBio). NanoCor is a subsidiary of AskBio.
This particular treatment employs AskBio's Biological NanoParticle platform to deliver a gene developed by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Cincinatti. Once in the heart, that gene will work to rebuild muscle tissue and renew the heart's strength.
With this deal, Medtronic also received some rights to develop AskBio's delivery technology to treat central nervous system diseases.
"We are pleased to have an investment from one of the world's most respected medical technology companies," said Sheila Mikhail, NanoCor's chief executive officer. "We anticipate that this investment will be a very important step towards providing a non-invasive treatment option for the millions of patients suffering from this debilitating disease."
AskBio, located in Chapel Hill, was created using technology licensed from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. NanoCor was spun out from AskBio in 2005.