Harvard University’s Office of Technology Development (OTD) https://otd.harvard.edu recently established a licensing agreement granting “HoliStick Medical” a Paris-based start-up, with exclusive worldwide rights to commercially develop medical technology that promises to minimally repair holes in hearts.
This minimally invasive surgical device could fundamentally transform the way doctors correct organ defects for patients with certain conditions. This surgical device might one day provide a lasting repair to the heart without the complications and risks common to more invasive types of surgery.
This catheter device can also be used to repair tissue defects in other organs. The technology is designed to work with sticky and flexible materials such as patches and incorporates mechanisms to close a hole without requiring the use of sutures or rigid devices.
HoliStick is backed by Truffle Capital http://truffle.com, a French venture capital firm focusing on disruptive start-ups in life sciences and information technology with $1.2 billion in assets under management.
The technology co-owned by Harvard, Brigham & Women’s Hospital Boston Children’s Hospital, and MIT was created through a collaboration between bioengineers and clinicians working with Harvard’s Biodesign Lab https://biodesign.seas.harvard.edu.
Funding is needed to support the research, to develop, and then to evaluate the catheter device at Harvard and the other collaborating institutions supported in part by NIH https://www.nih.gov and the National Science Foundation https://www.nsf.gov.