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Home > About BNE > Press Room > Current Articles > July > SmartPill moves to Buffalo, receives capital investment


                                                                                                                                    

SmartPill to get capital infusion

By David Robinson NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER


SmartPill Corp., the Buffalo company that makes an ingestible wireless medical sensor, is getting financial backing from a state pension fund and other New York venture capital firms.

State Comptroller Thomas

P. DiNapoli will be in Buffalo today to announce that the state is investing some of its pension fund money in Smart- Pill as part of an investor group that also includes a Troy-based venture capital firm, High Peaks Venture Partners.

The amount of the investment was not disclosed.

SmartPill announced in April that it is moving its manufacturing operations, currently located in California, to its facility on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

The move, which is scheduled to be completed by November, would make SmartPill the first company within the medical campus to do its own manufacturing in Buffalo. Company officials said the move will combine the economic benefits of research with the additional jobs that come with production of the product.

SmartPill makes an ingestible sensor device that is about the size of a large vitamin. The device, which was approved for use by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration in July 2006, can be swallowed by a patient.

As the device travels through the patient’s digestive system, it measures conditions, such as acidity, pressure and how long it takes to pass through the patient. A receiver the size of a cellular telephone collects the data relayed from the capsule. The monitoring system costs around $15,000.

The SmartPill device is used to diagnose motility disorders, such as gastroparesis, or slow stomach emptying, a condition affecting at least 3 million people a year in the United States. The condition can cause loss of appetite, vomiting and bloating, particularly among diabetics.

SmartPill executives eventually hope to broaden the uses for the device to include conditions such as bacteria overgrowth and chronic constipation, as well as veterinary uses.

The company hopes to reduce its costs by about 60 percent by shifting production of its SmartPill device to Buffalo from a contract manufacturer in California.