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Setting new standards of treatment with shockwave therapy

Avner Spector is the CEO and co-founder of Medispec, a medical technology company that specializes in extracorporeal shockwave therapy solutions. At clinics, medical centers, and hospitals in over 80 countries around the world, health care providers use Medispec’s systems to treat patients’ conditions in fields such as urology, cardiovascular medicine, and orthopedics. The company’s products are versatile, modular, and easy to use, and offer a high degree of mobility. Started in Tel Aviv, Israel, Medispec opened headquarters in the U.S. several years ago with the help of the Maryland/Israel Development Center (MIDC), a nonprofit organization that promotes trade and investment between Maryland and Israeli businesses and research institutions.

Avner Spector spoke with Barry Bogage, director of the MIDC, for this interview.

BARRY BOGAGE: What are some of the applications of your products?

AVNER SPECTOR: I have some studies that show very strongly that we can convert those patient to respond to pharmaceutical company. So, actually we believe that this technology will increase the use of pharmaceutical for erectile dysfunction. One German physician asked me what you also could do in this technology, and I said to him, “Look, you can treat the penis for erectile dysfunction. The issue is to increase the blood flow.” He asked me how to do it and I gave him what protocol I think would be advisable to do these kind of things. He met me a half-year after that and he said to me, you don’t know how much you are correct. I have a patient that had an erectile dysfunction problem for eight years. His wife come to kiss me—that’s how much he became functioning again. So, obviously this encouraged us to get inside more deeply and to do a very deep study and to publish it. Today this technology has already been accepted by the Urology European Association as a standout therapeutical for erectile dysfunction, and we are in the process with the FDA to achieve our approval for this device. Hopefully, it will be out soon in the US market, as an alternative or together with a pharmaceutical therapy for people that are suffering from erectile dysfunction. One very interesting part about it is that most diabetic patients not respond properly for pharmaceutical therapy, and the combination of shockwave and pharmaceutical therapy is the solution for them before they go for much more drastic efforts to solve this problem.

Is venture capital important to you?

If you want to convert yourself from a company that’s between $10-20 million dollar turnover to few hundred million dollar turnover in five years you must raise a lot of capital. You cannot jump this out having this capital inside. That’s mandatory to raise this money. It could come from private money or could come from public money or any kind of combination like this. It’s in the right stage to convert the company to a public, but obviously also as a private company it is a good company as long as the resources will be available to the company. For example, this could be some kind of a very nice joint venture, but as a company, the first time that you look and present it looks like we diversified in all directions and we don’t know what we are doing. It’s very difficult for a venture capitalist or investor to think, “How I can cooperate with the company like this? They don’t have direction. They don’t know what they want. They don’t know where to go.” And we know very clearly where we want to go. Most of it is very similar. Yes, in the end it’s a little bit different with marketing, but each one, if we’re looking on the main playing field of regenerative medicine that we are planning: the cardio market is more than billion dollars, erectile dysfunction is more than three billion dollars, kidney disease is more than three billion dollars. We’re taking on a huge market that each one by itself could be a big market. So, part of our strategy to go over there is willingness to separate the packages to each package with the right investor, or to find the right investor that would be willing to go with us for all the packages. Obviously, it is different level of investment and everything is different, so we are open to any kind of collaboration and as long as it is fit for both sides, we will be more than happy to go for it.

Connect with Avner on LinkedIn

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