“Beating-heart” transport specialist Transmedics Inc. closed on new funding totaling $35.4 million, including the conversion of about $9 million of debt.
The Andover, Mass.-based company markets the Organ Care System, a portable container designed to carry hearts, kidneys and other organs between surgical facilities prior to transplant. Roughly the size of a kitchen trash compactor, the battery-powered unit continuously bathes organs in warm, oxygenated blood, replicating conditions inside the body and reducing tissue damage and decay compared with traditional methods of keeping organs on ice during transport.
The new funding round, Transmedics‘ fifth since its 1998 founding, was disclosed in documents filed March 1 with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The filing did not specify individual investors; previous funding rounds were led by Tudor Investments, Flagship Ventures, CB Health Ventures and the U.S.-based arm of 3i Venture Capital, which owned nearly one-quarter of Transmedics stock prior to the current round.
Overall, venture capital firms owned well over 85 percent of all Transmedics common and preferred shares, according to preliminary offering documents filed as part of company efforts for a proposed initial public offering of stock launched in September 2007. The company pulled the IPO bid, citing unfavorable market conditions, in December 2008 and after raising $11.2 million from its existing investor pool a few months earlier.
The OCS currently is cleared for use in heart transplants in Europe and Australia. The company in April 2007 began the pilot trial phase for an investigational device exemption at five centers in the U.S., including Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. The company last year also proposed trials for “a device that is not approved or cleared by the U.S. FDA,” but appears to have not yet acted on that request.
Transmedics CEO Wallen Hassanein was traveling this week and did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
