ReGen Biologics Inc. (PINK:RGBO) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.
The embattled maker of the Menaflex knee implant said in regulatory filings that the bankruptcy petition includes the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary RBio Inc., but not its wholly-owned Swiss subsidiary, ReGen Biologics AG. The company will use cash flow from operations and proceeds from a loan it received from one of its largest institutional shareholders to pay the bills while it goes through the bankruptcy process.
ReGen said it raised $1 million through a private placement deal with the Sports Medicine Holding Company LLC, a division of Ivy Healthcare Capital II L.P., one of its largest shareholders. The private placement comes in the form of senior secured notes due August 31, which carry a 12 percent annual interest rate.
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The bankruptcy filing adds yet another layer to the ReGen story, featuring a protracted and public battle with the FDA for nearly two years that has captured the attention of the medical device industry. Last week, the FDA rescinded its 2008 510(k) clearance of the Menaflex device, a bio-absorbable mesh implant designed to encourage the re-growth of damaged knee cartilage. The rescission means Hackensack, N.J.-based ReGen has to keep the device off the U.S. market until it can prove its safety and effectiveness to the FDA’s satisfaction.
ReGen wasn’t shy about voicing its displeasure over the rescission, with CEO Gerald Bisbee calling it “totally unbelievable.”
The FDA said it wants ReGen to “discuss the appropriate marketing pathway for the device and what data it would need to provide a reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness,” five years after the company began the 510(k) application process.
ReGen has sunk $30 million into meeting requirements set by the FDA’s Center for Devices & Radiological Health, according to Bisbee, “only to have the agency reverse decisions made by previous CDRH officials by stating that they were in error with no substantial evidence that is true.”
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The Menaflex 510(k) clearance in December 2008 came over the objections of FDA scientists who opposed clearing the device. In September 2009 the agency admitted that undue influence from four New Jersey congressmen and former commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach affected the decision to green-light the device and announced an investigation into the foofaraw.
In March, the agency’s Orthopedic & Rehabilitation Devices Panel decided that, while the implant is reasonably safe, its effectiveness needed to be further analyzed. That decision came the same week that the FDA released a report saying ReGen failed to produce adequate evidence that device was safe before it was cleared to hit the market.
“It’s unbelievable that after more than five years of 510(k) review of this product — and after being told by the ODE Director and the CDRH Director to file two separate 510(k) submissions for this device as a surgical mesh — [CDRH head Dr. Jeffrey] Shuren now says that they were wrong,” Bisbee said in prepared remarks on March 22. “This arbitrary and unsubstantiated intention is an example of why the investment community is increasingly wary of investing in companies with products requiring FDA approval.”
That wasn’t the only shot Bisbee fired across the FDA’s bow.
“We and they both know the agency has no legal authority to rescind its clearance of Menaflex. There is ample evidence the FDA completely botched its review of our Collagen Scaffold at every stage,” he said. “After six years of unthinkable bias, mistakes and blunders, we are opting out of the FDA’s administrative process and pursuing other legal options for continuing to market Menaflex to U.S. orthopedic surgeons and their patients.”
The Massachusetts Medical Devices Journal is the online journal of the medical devices industry in the Commonwealth and New England, providing day-to-day coverage of the devices that save lives, the people behind them, and the burgeoning trends and developments within the industry.
