Nicast hopes to secure approval for marketing in Europe later this year.
Medical device company Nicast Ltd., has begun clinical trials on human subjects with the aim of registering its flagship product in Europe. The company’s product is a nanometric-scale artificial blood vessel, made for use in dialysis patients. Nicast hopes to secure approval for marketing in Europe later this year, and it will begin US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) trials in 2008.
Nicast was founded in 1995 by CTO Dr. Alexander Dubson, with the aim of implementing the electro spinning method for nanometric-scale fibers that he developed in Russia. The company initially focused on the development of clean-room filters but decided that as a company that was too far away from the main market for these products, it would not be advantageous for it to focus on them. It later realized that it had the ability to develop artificial blood vessels. At first it designed them for use in heart-bypass surgery, but it later decide to focus on dialysis where it has a greater competitive edge.
Nicast’s main investors are David Azrieli and Israel Infinity Venture Capital, TechnoPlus Ventures which was recently acquired by Infinity and Einanit, which is also connected to Azrieli. The company has raised $6 million to date.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on February 11, 2007
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