GT Medical Technologies has raised $10 million in funding to help support commercialization of its GammaTile Therapy, a bioresorbable implant designed to deliver local doses of radiation to patients with brain tumors.
The series A round was led by MedTech Venture Partners, with additional funding from BlueStone Venture Partners. GT Medical recently began rolling out its targeted radiation therapy to a limited number of U.S. medical centers, after receiving 510(k) clearance from the FDA in July 2018 for patients with all types of recurrent intracranial neoplasms.
The GammaTile is placed directly at the site of the tumor after it has been removed by a surgeon, to target any residual cancer cells before they can replicate. Its conformable, collagen-based structure is designed to protect healthy brain tissue from direct contact and deliver radiation uniformly.
According to the Tempe, Arizona-based GT Medical, half of the implant’s radiation dose is delivered in the first 10 days following surgery, with 88% delivered after one month, and more than 95% after six weeks.
Compared to adjuvant external beam radiation therapy, which can require daily follow-up treatments, those procedures can be delayed for two weeks or more to allow surgical incisions to heal. In addition, GammaTile can emit two-and-a-half times the radiation dose compared to EBRT. In a study, GammaTile extended the time to local recurrence by nearly 10 months compared to the standard of care, the company said.
In a separate single-arm, prospective study of recurrent meningiomas, the most common type of primary brain tumor, GT Medical saw a median time to local disease progression of at least 29 months, nearly a year longer compared to the same patients’ prior rounds of treatment.