Holland, Michigan-based HAPPE Spine LLC has successfully closed an oversubscribed $3.35 million Series A funding round featuring investors from the spine industry as well as the Genesis Innovation Group’s cultivate(MD) Seed II Fund.
HAPPE Spine Closes $3.35M Funding Round
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HAPPE Founder and Chief Technology Officer Ryan Roeder, Ph.D. commented in the press release, “I am humbled and honored by the strong response to our Series A capital raise, especially considering that we intentionally targeted spine industry leaders for the majority of this raise.”
Dr. Roeder continued, “We received robust buy-in from those who best understand the market opportunity for our biomaterial platform.”
HAPPE is a medical device company that creates and commercializes spinal implants using its orthopedic material platform. Its “orthopedic material platform, Hydroxyapatite Porous PEek (HAPPE™), transforms polyetheretherketone (PEEK) from a hydrophobic, bioinert, and non-integrating material into a hydrophilic, bioactive, and osteointegrating material.” It promises to “improve clinical outcomes in interbody spinal fusion by overcoming the problems of pseudoarthrosis, subsidence and imaging artifacts that limit current PEEK and titanium implants.”
Dr. Roeder is also a professor at the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana where he originally directed the invention of the HAPPE material platform. HAPPE Spine has already received three patents and has additional patents pending.
OTW spoke to Dr. Roeder about the funds. Dr. Roeder explained that the “funds from the Series A raise will be used to support final regulatory testing, scale-up of manufacturing operations, production of implant and instrument inventory, and expansion of leadership and staffing.”
Looking forward, Dr. Roeder told OTW, “Our primary goal in 2022 is to introduce the promise of the HAPPE material platform to the market through a limited user release of an innovative cervical interbody implant and collection of early clinical data.”
Dr. Roeder continued, “We will also look to expand our product line in the lumbar spine.”
For OTW’s previous coverage of HAPPE, see ”New Patent Issued For HAPPE Spine’s PEEK Biomaterial” and “Genesis Innovation Group Invests in HAPPE Spine.”
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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