Vision and Venture Capital
We’re proud to have some Olderpreneurs on our team but we sometimes see them rubbing their eyes or showing other signs of eye fatigue. It’s hard starting into the crystal ball all day to look at investment opportunities and perform due diligence. So this caught our fancy in an ironic way. What happens when the olderVC has eye-related medical issues? Perhaps they pay more attention to the things that ail them or those around them. Of the thousands of deals the average VC looks at each year, only a handful catch their eye, so to speak, and even fewer capture their dollars.
That makes this opportunity from our friends at VCapital interesting. To read more click here. Or keep reading below, of course.
Glaucoma is a leading cause of irreversible blindness, affecting an estimated 67 million people worldwide. Current methods for treating this disease are drug therapies, with a failure rate of up to 35%, and surgery, with complication rates of 20%-40%. The main reason for these potential negative outcomes is that neither of the two existing methods can achieve a personalized pressure in the eye to prevent vision loss for each patient. The Camras Shunt will provide ophthalmologists with the only treatment that predictably controls pressure to prevent blindness. In addition, the implantation of the device is simple, minimally invasive, and reduces the surgical time by approximately 50% when compared to other shunt procedures.
The market for treating glaucoma is large and growing. While the company’s addressable market in the U.S. is any glaucoma patient that is seeking treatment, it will initially focus on patients where drug therapy has failed to control eye pressure. It is estimated that by 2020, the overall surgical market in the U.S. will be 336,000 individuals undergoing 672,000 procedures, for a market potential of $604 million. The glaucoma patient population is expected to grow by 36% in the next decade. In the last ten years, the use of shunts has increased at an annual rate of 8.8%. With the Camras Shunt’s unique capabilities, Camras Vision is well positioned to take advantage of this trend.
Camras Vision has a strong management team supported by a very experienced team of scientific and business advisors. The CEO was previously the COO at Summit Technology, the first company to bring PRK/LASIK to market, and has worked in numerous startups and has led the sale of two different companies to strategic partners.
If this looks good to learn more click here.
