Cervical spine-focused Providence Medical said today it raised $12 million in a new round of equity financing to help support its Dtrax platform of spinal products, as well as growing itself as a ‘differentiated’ business in the cervical fusion market.
Providence Medical’s CEO Jeff Smith spoke to MassDevice.com about where the company is headed, what the funding will mean for it and how Providence is working to stand out from the crowd.
“One of the biggest opportunities for Providence and the products we’re commercializing is to go into a very competitive space, which is the spinal implant market, but focus on a multi-billion dollar opportunity that most of our larger competitors, for one reason or another, have not focused on,” Smith told MassDevice.com in an interview.
Smith said the company was specifically focused on the cervical spinal market and more narrowly on cervical fusion.
“The company is trying to set itself out from the crowd by creating tissue-sparing approaches to posterior cervical spinal fusion. Smith said the focus allows the company to target a segment of patients who currently lack options outside large, invasive surgeries,” Smith said.
Smith said the company’s reach was growing as well as its portfolio, with 10 products in research & development, and 2 new products to be released at a conference in October.
Proceeds from the most recent round of financing will be used to accelerate research and development, something Smith said he was confident the company was able to do well.
“One of our competitive advantages is we can innovate faster, and bring new products to market with speed. So we have a history of doing that. We’re excited to show the marketplace a few more examples of that in the coming month, and with the proceeds from the new financing, we’re going to be able to double down on our R&D efforts,” Smith said.
Another part of the finances will go towards funding a U.S.-based multi-center prospective study of Dtrax products and cervical fusion for treating degenerative disc disease.
While innovation and testing are important, Smith said the core strategy of Providence was building a differentiated company that stands out in the cervical spine market.
“At the core of that differentiation is a tissue-sparing approach to cervical fusion that uses an indirect decompression with fusion. Where we go from here, with the proceeds form the new financing, is to take the initial footprint in cervical spine and expand our offerings to surgeons and patients so we can address nearly all pathologies in cervical spine.”
The financing round saw participation from existing investors Stanmore Medical Investments, Aphelion Capital and a newly established debt facility with Silicon Valley Bank, the Lafayette, Calif.-based company said.
Providence also announced it tagged Jason Hoffman, formerly of ArjoHuntleigh and Kinetic Concepts, to serve as its vice president of global sales. Hoffman spent 4 years with ArjoHuntleigh as veep of U.S. sales for therapeutic support systems, and had 13 years at Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) before that.
“Jason is a seasoned sales leader who has successfully driven impressive top-line growth for major medical device and life sciences companies. He brings outstanding strategic and tactical sales leadership skills to further enable the rapid growth and surgeon adoption of our DTrax cervical fusion portfolio,” Smith said in prepared remarks.