After slimming down its product suite with the sale last year of its robotic surgery system, Accelus is doubling down on its remaining offerings.
The company is zeroing in on its flagship FlareHawk interbody fusion system, as well as the Toro system, both of which are expandable spine implants used to treat degenerative disc disease. It plans to expand its R&D efforts around both systems—plans that will now be helped along by a new bout of funding.
Accelus has picked up $20 million in the form of a debt facility from life sciences-focused credit partner Symbiotic Capital, it announced last week.
The investment from Symbiotic “is a testament to the growth potential of Accelus’s technology and our vision for the future of minimally invasive spine care,” Accelus CEO Kevin McGann said in the announcement, adding that the loan “will be instrumental in broadening our market reach and speeding up our R&D to ensure we stay at the forefront of spinal implant technology.”
Among the planned R&D expansion will be what Accelus has described as a “renewed focus” on the Adaptive Geometry technology at the heart of its FlareHawk system. The technology allows the spinal fusion cage to expand in its height, width and curvature to fit to each patient’s unique anatomy.
Accelus said it will conduct additional studies and collect more data around the mechanism, with an aim of further proving the efficacy of the already-FDA-cleared FlareHawk system.
In addition to supporting clinical research and product development work—around FlareHawk, the Adaptive Geometry technology and beyond—Accelus said the funds will also help expand its sales force into new markets and bolster the company’s overall balance sheet.
Symbiotic’s investment comes several months after Accelus shed another segment of its business: Last spring, it sold off the REMI system to Alphatec Holdings. REMI, named after its robotic-enabled, minimally invasive approach, is a navigation system that uses 2D and 3D patient scans to help surgeons with the proper placement of instruments and implants throughout spinal procedures.
ATEC offered up $55 million to acquire all assets related to the REMI platform, according to last April’s announcement.
That sell-off, in turn, came almost exactly a year after Accelus backed out of a reverse merger that was slated to take the company public on the Nasdaq in early 2022. Accelus had been set to merge with special purpose acquisition company CHP Merger Corp. in a deal valued at $482 million.
When it canceled the SPAC pact in April 2022, Accelus cited “market conditions” and called the cancelation a “strategic pivot.”