Celdara Medical, LLC today announced that the first DRIVEN Accelerator Hub Participant Company, CairnSurgical, Inc., has closed a Series A investment led by Morningside Group. The CairnSurgical team first engaged with both the DRIVEN External Advisory Committee (representing over $10B in assets under management and over $700B in cumulative market cap), and the DRIVEN Internal Advisory Committee (representing each of the leading research institutions in the region) at the inaugural DRIVEN meeting in January 2019.
Jake Reder, PhD, Celdara’s CEO and Principal Investigator of the DRIVEN Hub, stated, “I am gratified to see the CairnSurgical team achieve this key milestone, and even better to do so with such a forward-thinking investment firm. Their outstanding team and excellent clinical data have already demonstrated the potential to improve breast cancer surgical outcomes and patient lives. This investment further accelerates their growth and impact. We’re all very proud of CairnSurgical’s successes! More broadly, this is an excellent example of the power in connecting local innovation with sophisticated global capital.”
CairnSurgical was spun out of Dartmouth College and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Cofounded by Richard Barth, MD, Prof. of Surgery, Venkat Krishnaswamy, PhD, Assistant Prof. of Engineering, and Keith Paulsen, PhD, Prof. of Engineering, Radiology, and Surgery, and led by CEO David Danielsen, CairnSurgical is a pre-revenue, clinical-stage company developing patient-specific technologies to improve surgical outcomes. “The DRIVEN Partnership Program has been invaluable to us as a young company navigating financing and strategy decisions,” said David Danielsen. CairnSurgical’s first product is a breast cancer surgery guide, the Breast Cancer Locator (BCL). Currently, 20-25% of breast conserving surgeries fail to achieve clear tumor margins, requiring patients to undergo re-excision surgery, which is associated with difficult recovery, increased morbidity, and increased emotional strain for patients. The cost of positive margins to the US healthcare system is over $500M per year. CairnSurgical’s BCL enables precise tumor localization and excision, and has been tested in both single arm and randomized clinical trials. Prior to investment from Morningside Group, CairnSurgical was financed by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the New Hampshire Innovation Research Center (NHIRC) and private investments.
About CairnSurgical
CairnSurgical, Inc. is a clinical stage medical device company developing patient-specific surgical guides using patient imaging data and state-of-the-art 3D printing technologies.
About the DRIVEN Accelerator Hub
The DRIVEN Accelerator Hub is an NIH-funded consortium led by Celdara Medical and Simbex and includes partnerships with the leading research institutions in the Northeast IDeA region (Brown, Dartmouth, Maine Medical Center, MDI Biological Laboratory, University of Delaware, University of New Hampshire, University of Rhode Island, and the University of Vermont). The mission of the DRIVEN Accelerator Hub is to create quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and save lives by 1) Increasing the number of quality medical startups 2) Decreasing their time to market and 3) Increasing their probability of success. DRIVEN provides tailored consulting to select entrepreneurs through the DRIVEN Partnership Program. The Program culminates in a presentation to the DRIVEN External Advisory Committee, comprised of leading investors and in-licensing business development professionals, and the potential for seed funding. For more information regarding the partnership program, email info@drivenacceleratorhub.com. DRIVEN has also developed an online resource database that serves biomedical entrepreneurs by providing curated educational resources: bioentrepreneurresources.com
DRIVEN is generously supported by NIGMS grant UT2 GM130176.
About Celdara Medical, LLC
Celdara Medical gives hope and health to patients by transforming academic innovations into medicines with the potential to cure the world’s most challenging diseases. Celdara Medical is a recognized leader with a rich stable of discoveries, developed in concert with premiere research institutions in the US, EU, and beyond. We secure lasting partnerships with inventors and their institutions, and provide the developmental, financial, and business acumen to bridge the gaps between discovery and clinical impact. With robust funding options, operations in greater Boston, NYC, and Washington, DC, growing affiliates in Seattle and Indianapolis, a wealth of opportunities in our pipeline, and partnerships with industry leaders worldwide, Celdara Medical navigates the path from science to medicine, accelerating innovation to improve human health.