Mountain View, CA, Jan. 14, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Amaranth Medical, a privately held medical device company, today announced the closing of an equity investment by Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX). The additional investment capital will be used to advance the clinical development of the Amaranth FORTITUDE™ drug eluting bioresorbable scaffold in a planned international clinical study and subsequent application for CE Mark. In addition, the funding will support continued development of the next generation FORTITUDE™ bioresorbable scaffold, which will have thinner struts than any currently available polymeric bioresorbable scaffold.
"We welcome the Boston Scientific investment as we continue development of the FORTITUDE scaffold and build upon the clinical results we have seen to date," said Kamal Ramzipoor, chief executive officer of Amaranth. "The properties of the proprietary polymer and the unique manufacturing processes that we developed have allowed us to produce a scaffold with mechanical strength and durability which we believe exceeds that of all currently available bioresorbable scaffolds. We look forward to advancing FORTITUDE into the next stage of clinical development and to continuing our development of the next generation of FORTITUDE scaffold."
The non-drug-eluting FORTITUDE scaffold was previously evaluated in a study of 13 patients with symptomatic coronary artery disease, results of which were presented at the annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) meeting on October 27, 2013. Data presented at TCT suggested that the FORTITUDE scaffold maintained its mechanical integrity, with late lumen loss comparable to that observed with bare metal stents. In 2014, Amaranth will begin enrolling a second cohort of patients to evaluate a drug-eluting FORTITUDE scaffold.
Fred M. Schwarzer, managing partner of Charter Life Sciences and executive chairman of the Amaranth Board of Directors, added, "The clinical results generated from studies of the FORTITUDE scaffold to date have been impressive; we are excited to add Boston Scientific, a world leader in cardiovascular medicine, as a strategic investor."
About Amaranth Medical
Amaranth Medical, Inc. is a medical device company which has created a novel technology platform for the development and manufacturing of fully bioresorbable scaffolds. The Company's lead product is the FORTITUDE™ scaffold, which is designed to afford the strength of metal stents to assist the artery during the remodeling process following an interventional procedure, without leaving behind a permanent implant with inherent clinical limitations. Amaranth Medical is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and its research and manufacturing operations are located both in Singapore and at its Silicon Valley headquarters. Amaranth Medical is led by Kamal Ramzipoor, and its investors include Charter Life Sciences, Bio*One Capital, Philip Private Equity, DCP Management and Venstar Capital.