Concordia Manufacturing LLC, Coventry, R.I., a producer of fiber-based materials for biomedical,
industrial and consumer applications, has received $250,000 from the Slater Technology Fund, a
Providence, R.I.-based state-backed venture capital fund that provides seed capital for ventures
that will base their operations in Rhode Island. The funding is part of an initial $1.5 million in
equity financing the company will use to expand facilities and provide working capital for its
growing biomedical products business. Concordia also expects to obtain further funding before the
end of the year to use in its expansion efforts.
The 87-year-old company began its thrust into the biomedical field in 2003, aided by an
initial $100,000 in equity seed funding from Slater. In 2005, Concordia acquired Mansfield,
Mass.-based Albany International Research Co.’s biomedical assets related to the manufacture of
nonwoven scaffolds for tissue engineering and introduced its BIOFELT™ needlepunched 3-D felt
bioabsorbable scaffolds for use in regenerative medicine applications, again with assistance from
Slater, this time in the amount of $150,000. Other investments in Concordia’s biomedical business
have come from its shareholders, including members of the company’s founding Boghossian family.
The biomedical activities now comprise close to 30 percent of Concordia’s total business,
about triple the volume of late 2005, said Randal W. Spencer, president and CEO. “We’ve developed
new products, including one coming out in about a month and another in early 2008,” he said. “We
have a number of other products in clinical trials — in addition to arteries, we have a product
going into bladders, another in heart valves. We’re supporting some major research developments at
top universities, including schools in Boston; Yale, Duke and others.”
Expansion plans call for at least a tripling of Concordia’s clean room space and a
quadrupling of what Spencer called its “medical manufacturing space — not quite a clean room, but a
controlled environment,” from 1,000 square feet (ft2) to 4,000 ft2.
August 28, 2007
