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EnteroMedics Acquires Medical Weight Loss Device
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EnteroMedics Inc. announced that with the purchase of BarioSurg Inc., it has acquired the Gastric Vest System, an implanted medical device that wraps around the stomach to reduce gastric volume without damaging patient anatomy, according to a press release.
Pilot research conducted outside the U.S. showed that patients with the vest demonstrated a mean percent excess weight loss of 85%, an average drop in Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) of 2.1 points and an average weight loss reduction of 15 inches.
“Based on early results, when comparing short-term [percent excess weight loss], the Gastric Vest appears to perform as well as, and possibly even better than, gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy procedures,” Scott Shikora, MD, director of the Center for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, former president of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, and chief medical consultant for EnteroMedics, said in the release. “If the Vest continues to yield similar results to those observed to date, it will be a game changer in the eld of bariatrics.”
The Gastric Vest, a minimally-invasive, laparoscopically implanted medical device currently being studied for weight loss in morbidly obese patients, emulates the effect of conventional weight loss surgery.
“We are excited to both incorporate BarioSurg’s Gastric Vest into our now further dierentiated portfolio of medical devices for ghting obesity and related comorbidities, and to explore potential clinical opportunities to combine the Vest and vBloc Therapy,” Dan Gladney, President, CEO and Chairman of the Board at EnteroMedics, said in the press release. “As we move toward building a comprehensive bariatric and metabolic continuum of care platform to eectively address unmet needs within these areas, we believe that the strong foundation we’ve built at EnteroMedics will maximize the potential for a successful approval and the subsequent commercialization of this device.”
Disclosures: Shikora is a chief medical consultant for EnteroMedics. Nihalani is the chief technology officer for EnteroMedics. Gladney is the president, CEO and chairman of EnteroMedics.