Local medical device maker Tympanogen working on $5M raise ahead of first product launch

After more than a decade of development, a Richmond company has just received its latest capital infusion as it gears up for a commercial launch of its first product next year.

Tympanogen CEO Elaine Horn-Ranney. Photos courtesy Tympanogen

Tympanogen, a medical device company that is working to modernize medical procedures for ear, nose and throat conditions, is working to go to market with a gel patch to repair perforated eardrums. 

To help it get there, the company recently closed on a $280,000 capital raise, funded by Charlottesville-based, UVA alumni nonprofit investor network CAV Angels.

Those new funds are part of a larger raise with a target of $5 million led by Philadelphia-based angel investing group Keiretsu Mid-Atlantic. 

Tympanogen CEO Elaine Horn-Ranney declined to comment on how much of the $5 million has been raised thus far; per a previous SEC filing, around $1.2 million had been raised as of mid-March.

Horn-Ranney noted that the company was introduced to CAV Angels through local investor Christian Haller who, along with being a UVA graduate, serves as Keiretsu’s mid-Atlantic and Southeast regional vice president. 

“We’re a Virginia-based company. There are a lot of good things that match up between us and CAV Angels. They put in $280,000 so far, which was fantastic … that’s a very big check size in this day and age,” Horn-Ranney said. 

Tympanogen’s first product, the Perf-Fix Otologic Gel Patch, is a nonsurgical eardrum repair treatment. A polymer hydrogel, the gel patch works by encouraging “minimally invasive repair” of the tympanic membrane.

The patch can be applied at a doctor’s office, in the place of the tympanoplasty surgical procedure that repairs ruptured eardrums. 

The Perf-Fix Otologic Gel Patch, prepared by a surgeon and ready for application.

“It’s a problem that affects about over 5 million people in the U.S …. right now, the only treatment is surgery,” Horn-Ranney said. “It requires a $20,000 surgery to repair. So, a lot of people don’t have surgery to fix it.” 

Horn-Ranney noted that the Perf-Fix procedure costs under $3,000.

“There’s no pain involved; it’s basically dabbing gel on your eardrum,” Horn-Ranney said. “It was exciting to see the first few procedures.” 

Now, in the midst of clinical study across several U.S. sites, including VCU, Perf-Fix is aiming for a broader launch next year. 

“Right in Richmond, we have patients that are getting treatment for this condition,” Horn-Ranney said. “It’s not an FDA-approved device yet, so that’s why we’re doing our clinical study. This is the last thing we do until it is ready for FDA approval.” 

Horn-Ranney said clinical studies should be completed before the end of 2025. FDA approval should take about six months, which would put the Perf-Fix at a commercial launch sometime around the summer of 2026. 

It’s been a slow climb for Tympanogen, which was founded in 2014 by Horn-Ranney and Parastoo Khoshakhlagh, who had both recently earned their doctorates in biomedical engineering from Tulane University, along with fellow co-founder and Horn-Ranney’s husband, Jesse Ranney. 

Horn-Ranney remains CEO, while Khoshakhlagh remains on as a member of the board of directors, simultaneously serving as CEO and co-founder of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based GC Therapeutics since 2019. Ranney, who is a pediatrician, also serves on the board of directors. 

Horn-Ranney noted it took a few years of working on and testing the gel patch product for Tympanogen to start securing grant funding

Tympanogen has also locked down around $7 million in nondilutive grant funding, including a sizable $3.23 million grant from the National Institutes of Health that was awarded to the startup in 2023, along with other infusions like a grant from the Department of Defense in 2020. 

As Tympanogen began to lock down some grant funding a few years ago, it was able to launch a study showing the product’s efficacy against a competing product that has since been discontinued, Horn-Ranney said.

That study, Horn-Ranney said, led to some buzz for Tympanogen in the investor world leading up to the current $5 million raise. 

“After that, then we could start generating some seed funding from investors,” she said. 

The Tympanogen lab.

But development took years, in part due to the time needed to create things like shelf-stable packaging for the gel patch, Horn-Ranney said. 

“It’s eye-opening in terms of seeing what stalls technologies from reaching the public. And when you have very innovative materials and therapies …those were some things we were working on for a few years in Richmond. It took a few years to work out the manufacturing process for how we were going to make the product,” Horn-Ranney said. 

Horn-Ranney noted that the $280,000 from CAV Angels, like much of the $5 million round the company is currently raising, will go toward the Perf-Fix’s commercial launch next year.

“This is making sure that we’re ready to manufacture product; we’ll be hiring a sales lead and getting our customer support system in place to get ready for our product launch,” she said. 

Tympanogen has been based out of VA Bio+Tech Park at 800 E. Leigh St. since 2018. The company started out in a shared lab in the tech park and has since expanded to a few labs and office space within the complex. It currently does all of its product manufacturing in-house, which Horn-Ranney said will come in handy as the company figures out how to scale up over the next few years. 

Looking to expand its facilities further, Horn-Ranney said that Tympanogen will be moving locations out of the tech park by the end of the year. She declined to comment on the exact location, but noted Tympanogen will remain in downtown Richmond. 

Tympanogen has hired three employees this year, including some manufacturing personnel, bringing the total for the company to eight full-time employees and three part-time contractors. 

CAV Angels managing director Rich Diemer said the group’s first investment into Tympanogen was its 60th portfolio investment total. Other portfolio companies for the angel network include the likes of Babylon Micro-Farms, Brandefy and Liquet. 

“​​Our members are attracted to companies like Tympanogen that are rapidly approaching commercial sales for their innovative medical device that is expected to establish a new cost efficient standard of care for eardrum or tympanic membrane perforation,” Diemer said, adding that CAV Angels may look to do another close for Tympanogen before the end of August of this year. 

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