Participated · Series C · Nov 2024

TransMedics, founded in 1998, develops the Organ Care System, an investigational organ transport device designed to maintain organs in a warm, functioning state outside the body. The system aims to optimize organ health during transport, increase the number of usable donor organs, and enable living organ transplant. TransMedics recently initiated the European PROTECT trial to evaluate the Organ Care System for heart transplants. The company plans to extend the platform to other organs, including lung, liver and kidneys, and to commercialize the device. It is privately held and raised $29.75 million in Series C financing to accelerate growth, continue the PROTECT trial, and initiate new studies in Europe and the U.S. Company leadership indicated a target for European market approval early in 2007. TransMedics Group is a medical technology company built to address the need for more and better donor organs by developing portable extracorporeal warm perfusion and organ assessment technologies. The company’s Organ Care System (OCS) program focuses on preserving organ quality and assessing viability prior to transplant to potentially increase donor-organ utilization for end-stage heart, lung, and liver failure. TransMedics plans to use incremental growth capital to accelerate its commercial momentum, grow transplant volume, and improve clinical outcomes. The company said the new financing is non-dilutive and will provide financial flexibility as it scales the business. TransMedics was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts. The company intends to use the capital to retire existing debt and support continued market expansion. TransMedics has developed the Organ Care System (OCS), a portable technology and multi-organ platform designed to maintain donor organs in a near-physiologic state outside the body to improve transplant outcomes and expand the pool of transplantable organs. The company’s OCS Heart and OCS Lung systems are CE Marked and are used by transplant centers in Europe, Australia and Canada. The OCS Heart, Lung and Liver systems are in clinical trials in the United States. TransMedics is led by Dr. Waleed Hassanein, President and CEO. The company recently closed a $51.2M growth equity financing. TransMedics develops a portable warm blood perfusion system—referred to in coverage as an Organ Care System—that keeps donor organs functioning outside the body instead of on ice. The device is positioned as a “living organ transplant” solution intended to improve organ condition prior to transplant surgery. Reported benefits include the ability to resuscitate hearts from donors after circulatory death and to identify pathologically abnormal hearts that might be missed with cold static storage. A study and accompanying editorial in The Lancet found short-term outcomes comparable to cold storage but noted the system could reveal abnormalities and that more study is needed. The privately held Boston company was launched in 1998 and has raised well over $100 million to date, leaving it well-capitalized. CEO Waleed Hassanein has publicly criticized cooler-based transport and promoted the system as a better method for organ preservation and transport. TransMedics is an Andover, Massachusetts–based medical technology company focused on extending the life-saving benefits of organ transplantation. Led by President and CEO Dr. Waleed Hassanein, the company develops the Organ Care System (OCS™) Heart and Lung devices. The OCS devices are portable preservation technologies that maintain donor organs in a near-physiologic and functioning condition from donor to transplant recipient. TransMedics closed a $36M financing to support its programs. The company intends to use the funding to complete its heart and lung FDA pivotal trials and expand global commercial activities. In conjunction with the financing, representatives from the lead investor joined TransMedics’ Board of Directors.

Participated · Series B · Nov 2011

PathoGenetix is a Woburn, MA-based provider of rapid bacterial identification solutions. The company develops an automated RESOLUTION System that includes the instrument, bioinformatics software and database, and pathogen-specific assays. Its core technology is Genome Sequence Scanning (GSS™), which PathoGenetix intends to continue developing with new funding. PathoGenetix raised $10M in a Series C financing to support that development. Led by CEO Ann Merrifield, the company plans to commercially launch the RESOLUTION System in 2014 for food safety testing and foodborne illness outbreak investigations. PathoGenetix develops an automated Genome Sequence Scanning (GSS) system for rapid bacterial strain identification. GSS uses a single reagent set to generate genomic barcodes from bacterial DNA and can identify thousands of strains in a single test in about three hours. The technology extracts genomic barcodes as DNA flows through a microfluidic chip at 150 million base pairs per second and can scan complex clinical specimens faster and at lower cost than current diagnostics. Applications include microbiome research, clinical diagnostics, antibiotic development, food and pharmaceutical contamination detection, and biothreat detection. PathoGenetix secured $11.5 million in Series B funding (two closings: $4.0M and $7.5M) to support development and commercialization. The company plans an initial commercial introduction of GSS into the research market in late 2012. GSS development was initially supported with more than $50 million from the U.S. Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. PathoGenetiX is developing an automated system that rapidly identifies pathogenic bacterial strains using its proprietary Genome Sequence Scanning (GSS) technology. The GSS platform can cost-effectively identify thousands of strains in a single test from complex samples in about three hours using a single reagent set and a microfluidic chip that processes DNA at high speed. The company plans initial commercial introduction into the research market in 2012 and aims to advance applications in microbiome research, food and product safety testing, and clinical infectious-disease diagnostics. Development of the technology was initially supported with more than $50 million from the U.S. Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. PathoGenetiX has demonstrated capabilities across clinical, environmental, and food samples using commercial prototypes of its instrumentation systems. The company has secured outside financing to complete development of its first commercial systems.