The Growing Medical Device Industry
The medical device industry is estimated to be worth $448 billion in 2020 by Precedence Research. This market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 5%, reaching $671 billion by 2027.
According to a Fortune Business Insight report, the market segment of cardiology medical devices, in which Intratech operates, is estimated at $54 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow at an average rate of 7% each year to about $86 billion by 2028, due to population aging, heart disease, and favorable regulations.
The expectation according to this report is that R&D investments in the field will increase in the coming years and that many products will enter the market through global corporations acquiring technologies developed by start-ups.
The Team Leading Intratech
Intratech Medical was founded by Eran Hirszowicz, a seasoned entrepreneur and inventor in the medical devices industry with a proven track record in establishing successful medical device companies. The company’s CEO, Moshe Barel, has more than 15 years of experience in the medical device industry, having taken leadership roles within start-up companies and global corporations. He is the former CEO of Sanolla, Strategy VP at NovaSight, and has held senior roles at Johnson & Johnson and Lumenis.
The company’s Medical Director, Prof. Gora Weisz, is a leading interventional cardiologist and well-known researcher at Columbia University.
Prof. Rafael Beyar, one of the world’s top cardiologists, former Director of Rambam Medical Center, and former Dean of the Technion’s Faculty of Medicine, recently joined Intratech. Beyar serves as the company’s Scientific Advisor and is a senior professional authority attesting to the company’s strength and the feasibility of the product it has developed.
The Need The Company Meets
About 16 million people have a heart attack each year and it is the number one cause of death in the world. In around 30% of severe heart attack cases, and despite successful revascularization of the clogged arteries, the ischemic heart muscle continues to grow and becomes scar tissue, leading to a higher rate of mortality and heart failure.
Heart failure is a chronic disease with a very severe prognosis – about 50% of patients who develop heart failure after a heart attack will not survive 5 years after the event. Additionally, heart failure has a huge impact on overall health, limiting daily activities and resulting in a lifelong reliance on healthcare resources.
Intratech’s Solution
The Booster™ balloon is a unique spiral balloon designed to reduce infarct size and improve patients’ clinical outcomes after a severe heart attack. Immediately after the coronary artery catheterization, the doctor inflates the Booster balloon in the main vein of the heart.
Thanks to the unique spiral design of the Booster balloon, it causes temporary restriction of blood outflow, thus increasing pressure in the coronary arteries. This pressure improves the absorption of oxygen in the injured heart muscle, reducing the infarct area and ultimately improving patient outcomes.
Current Company Stage
Intratech has completed its product development and has a comprehensive patent family with 3 registered patents granted in the United States, Canada, Europe, China, and Japan.
The Booster product has proven itself in preclinical trials with promising results, and a preliminary study of humans in Israel and Europe is currently underway.
International Strategic Investors
The company’s major shareholders include a multinational US-based corporation in the field of interventional cardiology (market value of over $15 billion), and the XT High-Tech Investments fund.
Opportunity and Market Size
The company has already completed the R&D phase and is addressing crucial medical issues through innovative development. The target market is estimated at $3 billion through the sale of the Booster to hospitals seeking to improve the treatment of about 1.2 million cases of severe heart attacks in the anterior wall of the heart each year. In the future, the company will examine the product programming to treat all cases of severe heart attacks (3 million cases each year) in a market estimated at about $7 billion.
Insurance companies have a clear interest in financing the treatment offered by Intratech as the annual cost of treating a patient with heart failure is around $24,000. The cost of treating a patient after a heart attack in the US can reach up to $40,000 during the 90 days after the heart attack, and up to $1 million throughout the patient’s lifetime.
Competitors
Miracor Medical is the only competitor in the field of coronary sinus intervention for acute myocardial patients, Miracor developed a balloon that, unlike the Booster balloon, completely occludes the main vein, not allowing for continuous blood drainage. Therefore, it has to be operated by a dedicated machine outside the patient’s body, which inflates and deflates the balloon according to the patient’s ECG signals coming from sensors on the balloon’s tip.
Hospitals are required to purchase an expensive system and costly balloons. In contrast, the Booster balloon is simpler to operate and does not require the use of and reliance on an external system and is far more affordable.
