Devices & Diagnostics

Biolectrics developing pain-free severe gingivitis treatment device

A Cleveland-area startup is developing a battery powered device that’s aimed at treating severe gingivitis […]

A Cleveland-area startup is developing a battery powered device that’s aimed at treating severe gingivitis and other forms of gum disease with less pain and at a lower cost than current therapies.

Biolectrics recently received more than $200,000 in nondilutive funding from Lorain County Community College and Cuyahoga County that it will use to build prototypes of its device and begin in vitro testing, said Chief Operating Officer Bill Leimkuehler.

Citing ongoing work on patent applications, Leimkuehler was hesitant to reveal much about how the company’s OraFlow device works. He did allow that the company plans to have the device on the market by the first quarter of 2013 and that it’ll be targeted at dentists.

The company appears to have a large potential market for its periodontitis treatment device. Advanced gum disease affects between 4 and 12 percent of U.S. adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Once it rolls out its device, Biolectrics would do well to target geographic areas with high rates of smoking, given that the prevalence of gum disease is three times higher among smokers than among people who have never smoked, according to the CDC.

Biolectrics’ own research indicates that 56 million Americans suffer from severe gum disease, with a large portion of that number going untreated. “This is a tool that can be used to capture that untreated market,” he said.

The company’s primary advantage over current therapies for severe gum disease is twofold: cost and ease of use. In other words, Biolectrics’ OraFlow device is aimed at reducing the pain in patients’ gums as well as their wallets. However, because the company is reluctant to reveal details, it’s difficult to assess Biolectric’s claims of cost-effectiveness and pain reduction.

Severe gum disease is typically treated with scaling and root planing — scraping plaque from a patient’s gumline and tooth roots with a sharp device — or worse, flap surgery or bone grafting. Flap surgery involves cutting and folding back portions of the gums to access and clean diseased tissue. Both approaches, especially surgery, can be costly and painful.

“The existing treatments are somewhat barbaric in that they’re a brute-force attack on the plaque buildup,” Leimkuehler said.

The company is hoping to raise an unspecified amount of angel funding to further product development, and to make that investment more enticing, Biolectrics recently was approved for the Ohio Technology Investment Tax Credit.

Photo from flickr user anselm

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