Dry eye treatment company TearScience, with $70 million secured in new financing, is planning a global push of its products.
The privately held, venture capital-backed firm is based in Morrisville.
TearScince disclosed the financing agreement with HealthCare Royalty Partners late Monday.
The funding is not equity based but is financing based on expected growth of the company, Chief Financial Officer Nicole Wicker told WRAL Tech Wire.
With the funding, the company plans to hire additional sales people and step up marketing as it further commercializes eye-care products.
TearScience, which targets the dry-eye market, was already growing rapidly before announcing the funding. It now has more than 100 employees, having expanded sales force hiring in 2012, and Wicker said additional jobs would be created in coming months.
“We definitely are going to ramp up production and our commercial efforts,” she explained.
TearScience also plans more clinical studies.
Tim Willis, TearScience’s chief executive officer, sees more growth ahead.
“We are blessed to obtain this funding to build on our commercialization success,” he said in a statement. “Our company had an exceptional first year product launch with TearScience selling more than 100 systems, effectively treating thousands of dry eye sufferers, and proving our commercial business model. HealthCare Royalty Partners’ funding and partnership will provide TearScience the financial resources to build on our success and fully execute on our global commercialization efforts.”
TearScience was hosting a webinar Monday for more than 100 physicians even as the company announced the funding.
“The TearScience system revolutionizes the eye-care professional’s entire approach to evaporative dry eye,” said Gregory Brown, an MD and founding managing director at HealthCare Royalty Partners. “It assists the doctor in identifying evaporative dry eye, the most prevalent type of dry eye, and provides the most effective treatment. We believe this device-based solution delivers a more effective, less painful, and less expensive treatment option for this patient population.”
TearScience rsaised $44.5 million series C round of fundraising in 2010, with new investors Essex Woodlands Health Ventures, Investor Growth Capital and General Catalyst participating.
TearScience has developed technologies to both diagnose and treat evaporative dry eye. Dry eyes affect an estimated 100 million people globally. The vast majority of those patients experience evaporative dry eye, a condition in which the eye has an insufficient amount of the oils that prevent the tear film from evaporating. TearScience’s LipiFlow device uses a combination of heat and pressure to clear the obstructions that block the oil-producing glands.
The LipiFlow technology initially received U.S. Food and Drug Administration 510(k) clearance in 2011. Software and a hand-held unit that doctors use with the device received 510(k) clearance in February of last year. The complete system unit is now being marketed to doctors in the United States and select global markets.
TearScience’s CEO had said in 2012 that the company is considering an IPO and that the stock offering could be made overseas. He said an overseas public offering would offer the venture capital-backed company a better opportunity for liquidity.
