NorthStar Capital Advisors, in collaboration with Windham Venture Partners, assisted in the completion of an $18 million financing for the California headquartered spinal tissue repair company, SpinView, Inc.  Founded by Lewis C. Pell and Roy Chin (CEO and  formerly of AFx Inc. and Stryker Corporation), SpinView is developing and commercializing an innovative, market disruptive portfolio of minimally invasive spinal repair devices.   Earlier this year SpineView secured 2 FDA regulatory approvals and they have commenced sales in the United States.

SpinView's Focus:  Painful disorders of the back often result from injuries to or degenerative states of the intervertebral discs and associated bony structures. The aim of surgery is to remove and stabilize these diseased structures, and thus relieve pressure on the spinal cord as well as on the nerves issuing from the cord. Because these anatomical structures are not readily accessible, the surgical procedures often entail complex, time consuming and highly invasive approaches. In recent years, there is a growing demand to replace these surgical approaches with less complex and minimally invasive procedures.

SpineView’s Devices:  SpineView is dedicated to the development of a toolbox of MIS (minimally invasive surgical) instruments for spinal decompression, intervertebral body fusion and spinal stenosis. All these instruments were designed based on physician input and to make procedures as intuitive as possible. SpineView’s products have the potential for percutaneous, image-guided surgical approach including direct visualization approach.
SpineView has three categories of devices in its toolbox:

1. enSpire - for tissue removal and intervertebral body fusion,
2. enVue - for endoscopic visualization of minimally invasive spinal procedures, and
3. enCise - for removal of bony tissue compressing nerve roots.
   

All of these products have already received 510(k) clearance and several have launched or are set to launch in 2010 .

The Founders:  Lewis Pell has founded over a dozen successful medical technology companies during the past three decades including Pentax Precision Instruments (acquired - Asahi Optical 1990), American Endoscopy (acquired - CR Bard 1986), Versaflex (acquired - Medtronic 1988), Heart Technology Corp. (IPO – 1992; acquired - Boston Scientific 1995), InStent (IPO – 1995; acquired - Medtronic 1996), Influence (acquired - American Medical Systems 1999) and Biosense (acquired - J&J 1997). In total, Mr. Pell’s companies have sold for an aggregate value of more than $5 billion. Mr. Pell is currently Chairman and investor in a number of private medical device companies.

Roy Chin is an accomplished medical device engineer and inventor. His accomplishments include founder of AFx (acquired – Guidant, 2004) and Cardiothoracic Systems (acquired – Guidant 1999). From 1988 to 1996, he was responsible for multiple successful product efforts at Stryker Endoscopy thereby helping to increase sales from $1MM to $750MM.

Recent Accomplishments:
Q4 2009: FDA Clearance on all products
Q4 2009: 44 Sales Reps trained
Q1 2010: Occupy new R&D and manufacturing facility (24,000 sq ft)
with Optimal Manufacturing Flow
Q1 2010: Expects CE Mark approval allowing EU sales

Intellectual Property (IP):

• 12 pending US provisional Utility applications including 2 in active prosecution
• 8 pending provisional patent applications
• 4 PCT patent applications
• 14 national phase filings