Devices & Diagnostics

TearScience lands $15M to bring novel dry eye treatment to market

Medical device company TearScience has secured $15 million in debt financing that the company will […]

Medical device company TearScience has secured $15 million in debt financing that the company will use to support a pair of products addressing evaporative dry eye.

The venture debt financing comes from Oxford Finance and Silicon Valley Bank (NASDAQ:SIVB). To date, Morrisville, North Carolina-based TearScience has raised more than $70 million in venture capital financing since its 2005 founding. The company’s investors include Essex Woodlands Health Ventures, Investor Growth Capital, General Catalyst, De Novo Ventures, Spray Ventures and Quaker BioVentures.

An estimated 100 million people worldwide suffer from dry eyes. While dry eyes can be caused by the failure of the eye to produce enough tears, TearScience’s technology targets the 65 percent who have evaporative dry eye, a condition in which the tears that are produced by the eye evaporate quickly and leave the eyes dry. Evaporation is prevented naturally by an oily film released by meibomian glands in the eyelids. Evaporative dry eye results when channels releasing those oils are clogged.

TearScience has U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance on two products for dry eye. LipiView, which allows doctors to view the tear film and diagnose the condition. LipiFlow uses a combination of heat and pressure to treat it. Both diagnosis and treatment can be done in a physician’s office.

LipiView was FDA-cleared in 2009. LipiFlow received FDA clearance earlier this year. The company also has marketing certification for the products in Europe.

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