Sunday, November 07, 1999
CardioClasp may help biomedicals
BY TIM BONFIELD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
If CardioClasp ever makes it to market, the device could do more than help improve the lives of people with congestive heart failure.
It also could boost local efforts to build up Greater Cincinnati's biomedical industry.
CardioClasp is a spinoff of Dr. David Melvin's start-up company, Cardioenergetics. That company is one of the first tenants of Bio/Start, the area's biotech business incubator.
In September, a Life Science Task Force that includes several top busi ness and medical leaders stated that Greater Cincinnati has trouble reaping the economic benefits of medical ideas developed by local researchers. To reverse that trend, the task force announced several goals for enhancing local biotechnology development.
Among the goals: double the volume of basic medical research, vastly expand seed money for start-up ventures and strive in several ways to build an entrepreneurial culture for the region. The idea is to give start-up companies like CardioClasp plenty of incentive to stay in town.
Right now, some of the pieces are still missing, said Dr. Melvin.
Although CardioClasp was invented in Cincinnati and got lots of business development support through Bio/Start, the venture capital money to push it to the next level came from Itasca Ventures of Minneapolis. In return, Itasca gets a 45 percent stake in CardioClasp Inc.
Animal testing will be done out of town. The first of the prototype CardioClasps will be made in Boston.
Local companies could have provided some services, Dr. Melvin said, but a deal couldn't be done.
If all the testing is successful, development rights will be up for bid. If the rights are sold to an out-of-town company, the future economic benefits of job creation and product sales also go out of town — unless that company agrees to open a production facility here.
Dr. Melvin's company and UC would share in patent royalties.
However, Cardioenergetics also controls 45 percent of CardioClasp. The remaining 10 percent has been held to offer as stock options for company executives.
Dr. Melvin said he hopes to use any revenue gained from Cardio-
Clasp to develop his other devices, which may have better chances of being produced in Cincinnati.
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