DuraStat Announces $5M in Funding

Austin, Texas-based DuraStat LLC has secured over $5M in Series B funding. DuraStat plans to use the funds to expand market penetration for its dural repair product DuraStat into all spinal centers and launch new products.

The company, which has been growing rapidly, is projecting even more rapid growth in 2022 and beyond.

The flagship DuraStat product is currently being used in 43 states. DuraStat is a tool designed to help surgeons address dural tear and repair them repair quickly and more effectively. “DuraStat makes a dural repair much easier and efficient. Every facility performing spinal surgery should have this device on the shelf in the event of an incidental durotomy,” Andrew Cannestra, M.D., Ph.D., neurosurgeon at Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Florida told OTW.

DuraStat CEO Adam Azzara told OTW, “Demand for DuraStat has been rapidly growing as more information about the product gets out to the spine community and as more surgeons have a chance to handle the device—it’s a very tactile product so the hands-on interaction is very important.”

“The product addresses a serious challenge that every spine surgeon inevitably encounters, contributes to better outcomes, saves time, and is delivered with a net cost savings for care facilities; there is no downside to having it available. This is why we believe it will rapidly be on every shelf. We’ve more than doubled volume over the past 6 months and we anticipate that trend will continue, especially as we introduce more products that address other unmet needs with similar economic benefits starting later this year.”

DuraStat was invented by Greg Anderson, M.D. and Mark Kurd, M.D. and was developed for global use by Alex Lukianov and Kevin Foley, M.D.

DuraStat, LLC recently relocated to Austin in order to centralize training in an accessible American location while also tapping into the technology expansion development occurring in the region. A new spine product launch is expected late in the year, with others to follow in 2023.

“We have developed other soft tissue applications using DuraStat’s unique technology that address unmet clinical needs and for which there is significant surgeon demand. We will be unveiling one of these applications later this year,” confirmed DuraStat Founding Board Member Kevin Foley, M.D.

Alex Lukianov, Chairman of DuraStat and Founder and past Chairman/CEO of NuVasive, Inc. told OTW, “Kevin Foley, M.D. and I invested in this company because we see dural tears as an ongoing problem in spine surgery that needs a better repair solution, and especially for MIS [minimally invasive surgery] applications. The DuraStat device does that elegantly, effectively and in a very simple manner.”

“These are all of the attributes you want to see in a highly successful medical device, along with a reasonable ASP [average sales price]. Moreover, we believe that this initial product can scale to well north of a $100 million business just on the dural repair side alone. When we couple in several very exciting projects using similar technology to pursue other tissue closure opportunities then the addressable market will scale to well over $1 billion.”