Kidney failure treatment startup Phraxis is seeking $1 million of which $200,000 has been raised according to a recent regulatory filing.
Earlier in an interview with MedCity News, Phraxis CEO Michael Kallok had said that the company intends to raise $5 million. After the filing, he noted that the $1 million is a bridge financing and that he still hopes to raise $5 million.
“It has taken longer than we anticipated to find investors, so we wanted to keep the development momentum going while we negotiate with venture investors and they do their diligence,” Kallok wrote in an email.
Phraxis is trying to develop an implanted device that will serve as an alternative to how hemodialysis treatment is provided to patients with the goal of reducing infection. The device has a novel connector design that allows one end to be attached to the artery. A synthetic graft material is then attached to this connector and is tunneled under the skin, and the other end is connected to a vein in the patient. The graft doesn’t require any sutures to implant.
The technology was developed by Phraxis’ chief scientific officer Alexander Yevzlin, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a director of Interventional Nephrology and the university’s chronic kidney disease clinic. Yevzlin founded the company in 2009 and currently serves as a part-time chief scientific officer.
While the company readies for the larger fundraise and gets close to a final design, Kallok said he has been able to confirm the regulatory path of the implanted device: it will be to require a 510(k) FDA clearance and not the more lengthy and expensive premarket approval. Phraxis also has some data to share about the device — it will present results of animal testing and mechanical modeling at the American Society of Diagnostic and Interventional Nephrologists (ASDIN) annual meeting in New Orleans to be held Feb. 24 through 26.
