“Looking at the likelihood of success, it was a venture we felt very comfortable backing,’’ said Enrico Petrillo, managing director of Excel.
If the company receives approval from the Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency - the European Union’s FDA equivalent - it intends to sell the device internationally.
The device can be used to treat a range of illnesses, including multiple sclerosis, cancer, and hepatitis C, according to a patent the company filed with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the technology was developed. But Bobe said SpringLeaf will focus on using one drug to treat one illness in the device’s first iteration.
He would not disclose the disease the company intends to treat or the drug it plans to use, due to the pending patents on the technology. He said the company focuses on biologics drugs, which are made inside special, live cells rather than by combining chemicals.
Common biologic drugs such as Humira, Rituxan, and Stelara are used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and psoriasis respectively. Global sales of biologic drugs were $138 billion of total pharmaceutical sales in 2010 and are expected to reach $200 billion by 2015, according to the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, a market research company.
Patients who use SpringLeaf’s target drug visit the hospital every few weeks for intravenous injections, which include a large dose of a biologic drug.
With the new technology, a patient can pick up the device at a pharmacy, attach it to the abdomen, upper arm, or thigh at home, and leave it in place until the appropriate dose has been dispensed.
SpringLeaf said its device will also help patients save money on hospital bills and doctors’ fees.
