Tepha absorbs $11.3M in equity (MassHighTech)
Absorbable medical devices firm Tepha Inc. has raised $11.3 million in equity funding from 38 unnamed investors, according to federal filings today.
The Lexington-based company makes absorbable biomaterials that the company says adds flexibility, elasticity and biocompatibility to medical device products. Its TephaFLEX polymer has been used in U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved surgical suture and surgical meshes. It was founded in 1998 as a spinoff of a collaboration between its sister company Metabolix Inc. in Cambridge and Children’s Hospital Boston to develop technologies related to cardiac tissue engineering.
The company raised $4.97 million of a planned $5.15 million equity financing in May 2011. Previously, it raised $4.3 million in venture capital funding in 2004, and a $10.7 million financing in 2007. In February 2010, Tepha also pulled in a $3 million round.
Tepha’s website notes that investors in its Series A and Series B round of investments included The Vertical Group, Novartis Venture Fund, Integra Ventures and Westfield Life Sciences Fund.
The company’s CEO, Simon Williams, is a cofounder of Metabolix who led the spinout of Tepha. Before that, he was a lecturer in organic chemistry at Manchester University in England, and a visiting scientist and NATO postdoctoral fellow at M.I.T.