Clinical trials on the horizon for Worcester startup
Courtesy of VitaThreads LLC
Worcester startup VitaThreads LLC is making progress toward launching clinical trials of its suture product, the Vitasuture Wound Management System.
(Updated May 13 at 11:50 a.m.) It’s been a fruitful year so far for Worcester-based startup VitaThreads LLC.
The medical device firm, founded by two Worcester Polytechnic Institute professors and two others, placed second in a business pitch contest held by the nonprofit Venture Forum in April. And this week, the startup is presenting preclinical data to its target audience — plastic surgeons — during the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Congress in Montreal, which starts tomorrow.
A higher standard for sutures?
VitaThreads President and CEO Adam Collette, one of the founders, said the company’s trademarked VitaSuture Wound Management System has the potential for many surgical applications, but the first the company is testing are “high-visibility areas” such as the face. The product is essentially a suture that dissolves rapidly, and minimizes the body’s inflammation response that can lead to scarring and unevenness.
Historically, patients and providers have been happy to use existing suture materials that cause significant scarring about 10 percent of the time, Collette said. But he’s hoping that by bringing the product to market, VitaThreads’ technology will prompt a paradigm shift.
The sutures are made from fibrin, which the bodies of humans and animals produce during the healing process. VitaThreads harvests fibrin from cows in New Zealand (which is known for high-quality bovine stock, Collette said), then processes it at VitaThreads’ lab at 55 Union St., and attaches it to needles to be delivered in surgery.
The result, said Collette, is a suture that has plasticity and suppleness that’s superior to what’s currently available, and it dissolves more quickly, reducing the risk for an inflammatory response. So far, the sutures haven’t been tested in people, but the company says it’s been effective in preclinical studies on rats. The studies showed “successful closure of … wounds with no device-linked complications, with complete absorption of the suture material within 14 days, and minimal … evidence of inflammation,” compared with controls, a company statement said.
Cleft palette, cancer surgeries among potential applications
While aesthetic surgery is one area of medicine that could greatly benefit from the VitaSuture system, Collette said it’s also intended for medically necessary surgeries, such as removal of moles that may be cancerous, and even cleft lip and cleft palette surgeries in children.
And surgery that affects the skin may only be the beginning; Collette said there’s potential to use VitaThreads’ sutures internally during cancer surgeries, and perhaps even as a means for delivering stem cell treatments, which is something the founders have been committed to since the company’s 2012 inception.
But that will be years down the line, according to Collette. For now, VitaThreads is looking forward to beginning its first clinical trials in humans, perhaps as early as the end of this year.
“We think there are a lot of great applications for it,” said Collette.
(Note: This story was updated to clarify that just two of the company's founders at WPI professors.)
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