To understand how Anuncia is impacting healthcare, it is important to understand who Anuncia is as a company and what we do. Anuncia is addressing a clinical problem that has existed for decades that significantly impacts the lives of patients and families living with a condition called hydrocephalus. Excess cerebrospinal fluids (CSFs) can cause dangerous pressure on the brain and skull, and specialty drains called shunts are implanted. The shunt drains the excess cerebrospinal fluid from the brain’s ventricles to another part of the body, usually the abdomen, where it can be absorbed. Unfortunately, shunts have been proven over a period of time to become clogged or blocked. This requires immediate hospitalization and “revision” surgery procedures.
Anuncia has brought to market the ReFlow, an FDA-cleared patient management device to help clear the implanted shunt. This device can improve the lives of patients with hydrocephalus by helping prevent one of the biggest challenges they face — shunt blockage. Revision surgery can create risk for infection, additional hospitalizations, higher healthcare costs and tremendous anxiety for patients and families. Our patented ReFlow Mini device is designed to help maintain shunt patency (continuous flow) by restoring flow before a complete blockage occurs. By reducing unnecessary revision surgeries, we’re improving patient outcomes while also lowering costs for the healthcare system.
That’s the impact we’re striving to make every day. We are a commercial-stage Medical Technology company that delivers non-invasive CSF therapeutic and monitoring devices. Specifically, we are addressing unmet clinical needs in hydrocephalus and neurocritical care patients. The company has developed and is marketing a Patented ReFlow mini device that is part of an overall platform technology. This device is focused on helping to maintain patency for patients with implanted shunt devices.
Patients who have hydrocephalus, traumatic brain injury (and develop hydrocephalus) and other specific neurological disorders have, sadly, a relatively high blockage or occlusion rate with an implanted shunt. Data suggests that these rates can be as high as 40% at one-year post-shunt implantation. This often requires the patient to have a full revision surgery. This opens the risk of infection, significant costs to the health system, and often leaves patients with anxiety and fear based on an expectation of if and when this blockage could occur.
The Reflow Mini device is added to the existing shunt catheter and allows a patient or, in the case of an infant, the parent to be proactive and help stop the blockage before it gets to the point requiring a revision surgery.
Synergy in the Ecosystem
Greater Phoenix has been an outstanding home for Anuncia. We’re headquartered in Scottsdale, and virtually every core business function — from R&D and regulatory affairs to manufacturing, sales, marketing and clinical operations — is based here. We’ve also developed valuable relationships with Arizona universities through internships and collaborative programs that help develop the next generation of engineers and life science professionals. Additionally, there is great synergy with the local universities, with internship programs and shadowing programs, that has been very beneficial to students and those seeking experience prior to entering the job market.
Perhaps our greatest advantage is access to world-class neurosurgeons and neurological centers here in Arizona. Those relationships allow us to work directly with physicians who care for these patients every day. Their insights help improve our current products while shaping the next generation of technologies on our ReFlow platform. Having ASU in our backyard and some of their specific master’s development programs has been a tremendous benefit for Anuncia to hire excellent expertise and talent, but it allows the Anuncia team to also help train some of our future scientists and engineers on med-tech product development. Lastly, it also is helpful having local investors and organizations like the Flinn Foundation who are so supportive of companies within the Greater Phoenix med-tech community. It is a very collaborative environment.
Collaboration is one of Greater Phoenix’s greatest strengths. Companies like Anuncia don’t innovate in isolation. We work closely with academic researchers, physician scientists, engineering programs, manufacturers, investors and organizations like AzBio and the Flinn Foundation. Those partnerships accelerate innovation because ideas move more quickly from the laboratory to the clinic. That’s one of the reasons Anuncia chose to relocate from Boston to Arizona. We believed this ecosystem would help us innovate faster — and it has. The ability to have strong institutional investors, outstanding academic medical centers and universities provides a foundation of constant improvement and development ideas. Adding a really interesting aspect are those with clinical experience who have retired and chosen to live in Arizona and who are keen to offer insights and professional opinions, as block shuts have remained problematic for decades despite sincere efforts to correct.
The Now & Future Biosciences Hub
Arizona’s universities continue to generate an impressive number of patents, innovative technologies and startup companies, demonstrating that Greater Phoenix is becoming one of the country’s fastest-growing life science ecosystems. This shows that the foundation of sustained growth in this market is here to stay. Entities like AzBio and the Flinn Foundation are doing superb work in ensuring that Arizona continues to grow, compete and flourish with some of the other known geographical areas in the U.S. Additionally, as more and more companies have success in the Greater Phoenix area and more products are commercialized, it brings more subject matter experts into the area for job growth.
Any med tech or biotech company has numerous skill sets that can have an immediate impact on our economy. As stated above, there is manufacturing, clinical writing, regulatory, research and development, engineering, sales and marketing, to name a few. Commercializing a medical technology requires expertise across engineering, manufacturing, regulatory affairs, quality systems, clinical development, sales and marketing. Every successful company creates high-value jobs across numerous disciplines. It takes many different disciplines to get a product out the door to the customer, but when a ReFlow Mini is implanted in a hydrocephalus patient, it makes all the efforts so worthwhile.
Ultimately, every employee is motivated by the patient. When we hear from families whose loved one has avoided another revision surgery because of ReFlow Mini, that’s what reminds us why we do this work. Our goal is to make this technology the standard of care for hydrocephalus patients around the world.
Arizona has made tremendous progress over the past decade through organizations like the Flinn Foundation, AzBio, the Arizona Commerce Authority and our universities. They’ve created an environment where innovation can thrive. Looking ahead, continued investment in early-stage capital, commercialization programs and workforce development, and stronger connections between academia and industry will be critical. As more companies successfully commercialize products here, Arizona will continue attracting experienced executives, investors and skilled talent, creating a virtuous cycle of innovation and economic growth.
Elsa Chi Abruzzo, RAC, FRAPS
President & CEO
Anuncia Medical
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