Fetal Therapy Technologies

Our mission is to make fetal surgery safer by developing purpose-built access tools that minimize tissue damage, reduce complications, and improve outcomes when every millimeter matters. By commercializing our radially expanding port platform across broader microsurgical markets, we are building a financially sustainable company that can continue advancing life-changing innovation for fetal surgery and other delicate procedures.

The Problem: Across surgical disciplines, clinicians often create larger access holes than the procedure requires because today’s access tools are fixed-diameter devices. Upsizing typically involves dilation and sheath exchange. Larger-than-necessary holes increase tissue damage and bleeding risk, driving complications, longer procedure times, and higher costs. In endovascular procedures, upsizing devices creates workflow inefficiencies, increases bleeding risk, and contributes to closure challenges. In high risk procedures like fetal surgery where life-threatening birth defects are repaired in-utero, every millimeter matters. Oversized access can damage delicate anatomy and contribute to preterm birth. Across disciplines, the goal is the same: smaller, less traumatic access holes which directly translate to better outcomes. Radially-Expanding Port System Platform Overview and Applications: Fetal Therapy Technologies developed a patent-pending radially expanding port system originally purpose-built for fetal surgery, where access constraints and tissue sensitivity are most extreme. The device leverages the elastic properties of soft tissue to minimize insertion force and disruption, while its radially expanding sheath accommodates the full range of surgical instruments without requiring tissue dilation or port exchange, enabling surgeons to upsize access mid-procedure with minimal trauma. While optimized for the uterine environment, this core technology functions as a scalable access platform with parallel applications across multiple microsurgical markets, including interventional radiology, vascular surgery, minimally invasive gynecologic procedures, and pediatric surgery, where safe, adaptable access is similarly critical. Pursuing Financial Sustainability to Solve Company Mission: Fetal Therapy Technologies is a mission-driven company founded to address the unmet needs of fetal surgery. However, our customer discovery process revealed that fetal surgery alone is not a near-term commercially sustainable entry market due to limited procedure volume. To build a financially sustainable company capable of supporting innovation in fetal surgery, we aim to commercialize our technology in broader microsurgical markets where the same core challenges exist at greater scale. To inform this strategy, we’ve conducted 90+ stakeholder interviews across various clinical specialties (fetal surgery, interventional radiology, endovascular, minimally invasive gyn surgery, and pediatric surgery) and clinical administrators (director of clinical operations, hospital purchasing director, hospital CEO). Across institutions and specialties, stakeholders consistently identified tissue damage during access, inability to safely upsize mid-procedure, and workflow inefficiencies as major unmet needs, directly aligning with the value proposition of our radially expanding port platform. Our Traction: We have secured letters of intent from leading fetal surgery centers and conducted 80+ interviews with specialists, confirming strong enthusiasm for our solution. Our FetalCare Port System is at TRL3, with an MVP validated through benchtop placental membrane and porcine aorta studies demonstrating that our device can create smaller holes compared to the current clinical standard. Our work has been published in the Journal of Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy, with an additional manuscript recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Prenatal Diagnosis and Therapy, demonstrating strong academic and clinical credibility. On the business side, we have filed a PCT patent, filed three additional provisionals, and raised $350,000 in non-dilutive funding to accelerate development. All IP is fully owned by Fetal Therapy Technologies, LLC.