Monday, April 28, 2008

Arch wins anti-bleeding tech global rights

By Ryan McBride

A biotech startup has gained a worldwide license to high-profile technology from MIT that could change the way surgeons halt bleeding in patients.

The license enables Arch Therapeutics Inc., the Boston-area firm with exclusive rights to the MIT technology, to continue discussions with several branches of the U.S. military that are interested in using the technology to treat soldiers, said company co-founder and CEO Terrence Norchi.

Arch began business in early 2006 as Clear Nano Solutions LLC. Its technology -- described in previous articles in Mass High Tech and major academic journals -- is a liquid polymer containing tiny peptides intended to form gel-like barriers over surgical wounds to stop or control bleeding. Rutledge Ellis-Behnke, an MIT researcher who invented the technology and cofounded the company, has proven the polymer can stop bleeding in small animals within seconds.

"I think for me, the thing that is really exciting is that the technology continues to prove itself out," said Steve Kelly, a founder and chairman of Arch Therapeutics. Kelly has licensed MIT technology before, most recently as cofounder of Myomo Inc., a medical robotics company in Boston.

Norchi, Arch's CEO, said the unmet need for the firm's polymer drew him to the company last year. He spent the previous decade in health-care investing with financial firms Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC and Citigroup Inc., both based in New York, and later mutual fund company Putnam Investments in Boston.

Norchi said Arch's anti-bleeding polymer, which has been tested only in animals, would require human clinical trials to garner market approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Yet he declined to say when human trials are likely to begin. The company hasn't closed a deal with branches of the military, he added.

The annual worldwide market for products to prevent bleeding, or hemostasis, is about $1 billion, Norchi said. His eight-person startup faces stiff competition from larger life sciences companies in the hemostasis market, including medical products giant Johnson & Johnson, based in New Jersey medical devices firm Vascular Solutions Inc., based in Minneapolis, and others.