A twice-yearly, miniaturized, subdermal GLP-1 implant being developed to guarantee medication adherence and improve real world outcomes in the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes and Obesity
Adam Mendelsohn
CEO, Vivani Medical, Inc.
Vivani Medical, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company which develops miniaturized, subdermal implants utilizing our proprietary NanoPortal™ technology to enable long-term, near constant-rate delivery of a broad range of medicines to treat chronic diseases. Vivani uses this platform technology to develop and potentially commercialize drug implant candidates alone or in collaboration with pharmaceutical company partners to address a leading cause of poor clinical outcomes in the treatment of chronic disease, medication non-adherence. For example, approximately 50% of patients treated for type 2 diabetes are non-adherent to their medicines which can lead to poor clinical outcomes and avoidable healthcare costs. We are developing a portfolio of miniature, subdermal drug implant candidates that, unlike most oral and injectable medicines, are designed with the goal of guaranteeing medication adherence by delivering therapeutic drug levels for up to 6 months and potentially longer. In addition, by leveraging our proprietary NanoPortal implant technology we can design implants that deliver minimally fluctuating drug levels that may improve the tolerability profiles for certain medicines for which side effects are associated with fluctuating drug levels such as GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1s).
Our lead product, NPM-119, is a 6-month exenatide (GLP-1) implant being developed for the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes and Obesity. The NanoPortal technology incorporated within NPM-119 incorporates a titania nanoporous membrane which consists of millions of vertically-oriented, adjacently attached nanotubes which form a membrane and whose inner diameter represents the only path for drug molecules to exit the reservoir. By controlling the size of each nanotube at the nanometer scale using an atomic layer deposition process, near-constant release-rate profiles can be achieved without requiring any moving parts or electronics. High concentrations of highly potent molecules, including larger hydrophilic molecules such as peptides and proteins, can enable miniaturized implants to provide clinically-meaningful therapy durations. Successfully completed non-clinical pharmacokinetic, toxicology, and biocompatibility studies support the promising application of the NanoPortal platform technology in the development of NPM-119 as well as the potential delivery of a broad range of peptide therapeutics.
Since founding Vivani in 2009, Dr. Mendelsohn has served as its Chief Executive Officer and sets the strategic vision for the company. Dr. Mendelsohn received his Ph.D. in bioengineering at the UC San Francisco/UC Berkeley Joint Graduate Group in Bioengineering, Class of 2011, during which he was awarded an NSF fellowship to perform research at Kyoto University and published multiple peer-reviewed articles describing new treatment options for Type 1 diabetes through the immuno-isolated transplantation of insulin-producing cells under the direction of Professor Tejal A. Desai. While in graduate school, Dr. Mendelsohn served as the director for the Venture Innovation Program in Life Sciences and completed his certificate in Management of Technology with the Haas School of Business. Dr. Mendelsohn has served as a Technical Advisor to the Alfred E. Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering at USC, a fellow of the Startup Leadership Program, the President of UCSF’s Graduate Division Alumni Association and is currently a board member of the Maestro Foundation. Dr. Mendelsohn is also on the board of Cortigent, a leading neurostimulation company that is developing products to help patients regain control of body functions they lost due to disease or injury such as vision and hand and arm movement.