NEWTON, Mass.—Beacon Endoscopic Corporation, an emerging GI endoscopy company, this week announced a spin-off business, GI Windows. GI Windows will develop and bring to market a series of self-assembling magnets (SAMSEN) for incisionless bypass procedures of the digestive system.
Two years ago, professors and physicians at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brigham & Women's Hospital licensed the SAMSEN platform to Beacon Endoscopic for development in collaboration with the inventors.
"This novel, endoluminally-delivered device offers interventional endoscopists and surgeons the ability to create a leak-free connection between hollow organs without an incision," said Peter Lukin, vice president of operations at Beacon Endoscopic. "The continuous compression of the self-assembling magnets stops blood supply at the targeted area and leads to cell necrosis, allowing the body to use its own healing power to form an anastomosis between the adjacent structures."
Dr. Christopher Thompson, co-Founder of GI Windows and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard University, said, "The incisionless platform holds the potential to change the way we treat Type II diabetes and obesity. Our minimally invasive endoscopic approach will allow these procedures to be performed efficiently under conscious sedation, and avoid the need for permanent implants. This will be a more cost-effective approach than surgery or the current standard of long-term medication. It may very well change the paradigm of care for these patients."
To date, pre-clinical studies have been spearheaded by Marvin Ryou, MD, of Brigham & Women's Hospital and most recently presented at Digestive Disease Week 2012 in San Diego, Calif.
The GI Windows board of directors includes Brian Tinkham, Peter Rogal and Christopher Thompson, who also serve on the Beacon Endoscopic board of directors. They will be actively seeking strategic investors in early 2013 to help bring this technology to the medical community.
Beacon Endoscopic creates medical devices for interventional endoscopy procedures.
