Q&A with myoscience, inc. President/CEO Jeffrey Gold

Faced with the need to expand manufacturing capacity, myoscience found a natural home in Fremont. It joins a wave of companies moving into town, all with the same goal to scale operations. Locating to the heart of the Innovation District is fitting — myoscience epitomizes innovation with the development of the iovera° system, a completely unique way of fighting pain. We sat down with President and CEO Jeffrey Gold (JG) to get a better sense of what they are working on and how they fit into the regional biomedical ecosystem.

Fremont: How does the iovera° system work?

JG: Essentially it’s a pain disrupter for areas such as the knee. The iovera° treatment uses the patented Focused Cold Therapy™ delivery system, a convenient and powerful handheld system that employs specially designed Smart Tips for various pain treatments. Highly pressurized liquid nitrous oxide (N2O) travels from the hand piece to the closed-end needles of the Smart Tip, where it undergoes a phase change and becomes very cold. This phase change draws in heat energy from the surrounding tissue forming a precise zone of cold. Thegaseous nitrous oxide is expelled out of the hand piece, leaving nothing behind in the body. The precise application of cold to specific sensory nerves immediately relieves pain.

Fremont: How does the iovera° treatment for pain compare to other treatments?

JG: The iovera° treatment is precise, immediate, and predictable. Nothing is injected into the body so there are no systemic side effects to worry about. Full results are felt before the appointment is over. The minimally invasive outpatient treatment requires only a local anesthetic – there is no sedation, general anesthetic or hospital stay (unless otherwise indicated by the treating physician).

Fremont: The iovera° system already boasts some impressive statistics — can you give us the highlights?

JG: The Clinical Results1 speak for themselves:

  • In a post-market study for knee pain, 33 patients (56 knees) were treated and evaluated at 7, 30, 56+ days.
  • Pain score was reduced by an average of 4.5 points immediately following treatment. Pain was measured using the Visual Analog Scale for Pain (VAS).
  • Over 80 percent of subjects reported ≥2 point improvement in pain score at 30 days2.
  • There was an average of 70 percent improvement in functionality according to the Western Ontario and McMaster Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) scale at 7 days.
  • 70 percent of subjects reported a treatment effect at 56 days.
  • Subjects reported a level of satisfaction with the treatment:

– 94 percent of subjects reported they would have the treatment again at 30 days.

– 91 percent of subjects reported they would recommend the treatment to others.

Fremont: Talk about the decision to move to Fremont.

JG: Our business is growing rapidly, and we realized that we needed a larger facility and the right environment where we could scale operations. Fremont provides that. We also see the potential to leverage the existing biomedical manufacturing ecosystem that exists here already. Finally, we looked at where our employees live, and Fremont provides a more central location that most people can access easily. Fremont makes a lot of sense for all these reasons.

1 Data on file per MYO-0867. N=33 subjects at 7 days, 31 subjects at 30 days

2 Gallagher, J., Liebman, M., and Bijur, P. (2001). Prospective validation of clinically important changes in pain severity measured on visual analog scale. Ann Emerg Med. 38:6;633-638.