About 50 million Americans pop a pill to control high blood pressure, and medical device companies are vying to design a high-tech drug-free alternative for hypertension.
All three of Minnesota's big medical device firms are working on it, as is established Twin Cities med-tech player CVRx. Now a company called Valencia Technologies is testing a coin-sized neurostimulation device designed by a former Medtronic engineer who drew on the science of electroacupuncture.
As if that approach to the disease state wasn't novel enough, the California company is also turning the device-design process on its head by forgoing the high secrecy that typically attends development of medical technology. Valencia is publicly crowdfunding its new device, including publicizing its sensitive intellectual property and the privately held company's financials though a public equity-sales technique that only became legal in 2012.
"You always hear about insider deals, and this is the opposite of that," said Don Hubbard, an early investor who has bought 50,000 shares for $300,000. "I think it's the world we live in now. Everyone wants transparency. They want to see and know everything."
Devicemakers see huge potential in controlling chronic high blood pressure, which affects 68 million people in the U.S. and puts many of them at risk for heart attack, stroke and kidney damage. Drug therapy doesn't work for everyone, and it has its own drawbacks.
In January, Fridley-based Medtronic stunned the med-tech community when it announced its therapy to sever kidney nerves to control hypertension performed no better than a placebo after six months. Medtronic had paid $800 million in 2010 to acquire Ardian and its flagship renal denervation product. St. Jude Medical in Little Canada and Boston Scientific, which employs thousands in the Twin Cities, are both working on renal denervation therapies.
Valencia has a different idea. Similar to a device being tested by CVRx, Valencia's unbranded subcutaneous neuromodulation system (SNS) is supposed to reset the body's fight-or-flight hypertension response by applying a precise amount of electric stimulation to the median nerve in the arm for just 30 minutes per week.
Dave Peterson, the former Medtronic engineer who led much of the design work on the SNS, said the device is designed to mimic the way electrified acupuncture needles can create long-lasting health effects by stimulating specific nerves. "This is a marriage of Eastern medicine and a more classical Western medicine evidence-based approach," Peterson said.
