TransEnterix's highly anticipated single-port surgical device, called SPIDER, lured another $55 million of venture capital funding into its web, the company reported today.

This second round of financing comes three years after TransEnterix, based in Durham, NC, sprouted up with $20 million in seed money. The series B cash came from a series of mostly biotech-specializing VC firms, including Aisling Capital, Intersouth Partners and Quaker BioVentures, as well as TransEnterix's original investors Synergy Life Science Partners, Parish Capital Advisors and SV Life Science Advisers.

Partners from Aisling, which led the financing, Quaker and Intersouth have all joined TransEnterix's board.

The influx of cash will help with commercial manufacturing and marketing for SPIDER (an acronym for Single Port Instrument Delivery Extended Reach). SPIDER, a so-called single-port laparoscopic system, allows a number of tools to be packed onto a single platform, so surgeons can do virtually all their work through one port in the abdomen. [For more information about this minimally invasive surgical system, see our earlier coverage: DM 10083].

"For any company to raise an aggregate of $75 million in this economic environment is huge news," Karen Stinneford, a TransEnterix spokesperson, tells DOTmed News. "It obviously reflects the enthusiasm and potential people feel that this device offers."

SPIDER received FDA clearance last week, and is expected to roll out first quarter of next year.

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