Palmaz Scientific uncorks more funding

Palmaz Scientific recorded $1.3 million of a planned $4.2 million funding round for the prosthetic implant technology it’s developing in Dallas.

Coronary stent pioneer Dr. Julio Palmaz started the company in 2008 (in an interesting side note, he also owns Palmaz Vineyards, which boasts the largest underground winemaking facility in the U.S.). Palmaz, a 2006 inductee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, helped develop the 1st generation of coronary stents, tapped as 1 of "10 inventions that changed the world" in a 2002 edition of IP Worldwide.

Palmaz Scientific, which disclosed the funding in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, did not immediately make an executive available for an interview. The company raised $26.3 million from some 260 private investors last November.

Palmaz Scientific has sought funding from public sources as well, winning a $3 million grant in 2010 under a Texas emerging technology fund and another $250,000 from a state program to support therapeutic discoveries.

Palmaz Scientific has disclosed little detail about its technology, beyond stating it addresses how tissue and blood interact with prosthetic surfaces at the atomic and molecular levels. Including patents held by Palmaz Scientific subsidiary Advanced Bio Prosthetic Surfaces, the company has amassed more than 250 patents to date in the U.S. and overseas and has another 3 dozen U.S. patent applications on file, according to its website.

Recent patent applications address the mass transfer or fabrication of micro-sized features onto the inner diameter surface of a stent; and a process for forming a seamless junction between the scaffold of a stent and a metallic or pseudo-metallic material covering it, according to the site.