Levee Medical wins $2M NIH grant to advance prostate surgery device
What's the deal? Levee Medical, a Durham, North Carolina medical device company, has been awarded a roughly $2 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II grant from the National Cancer InstituteDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, part of the National Institutes of HealthDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The two-year, non-dilutive grant took effect August 1, 2026. It funds continued development of the Voro® Urologic Scaffold, a device aimed at improving recovery for men undergoing prostate cancer surgery.
Why now? The award follows completion of patient enrollment in ARID II, Levee's multicenter, randomized pivotal trial testing Voro in men undergoing robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy. The company was selected through the National Cancer Institute's competitive peer-review process, which evaluates scientific and technical merit.
What's the endgame? Levee will use the money for clinical data collection, investigator training, and design control work. The funding complements the company's ongoing premarket approval program for Voro, which targets urinary incontinence — a common complication after prostatectomy.
What could go wrong? Voro remains limited to investigational use and is not approved for commercial sale in the US or any other country. Its path to market depends on the pivotal trial results and regulatory clearance.
"Urinary incontinence after prostatectomy can profoundly affect a man's quality of life, and there remains significant opportunity to improve recovery outcomes for these patients," said Bruce Choi, founder and chief technology officer of Levee Medical.
The signal: The grant sits in the lower-middle of comparable rounds, landing at the 34.5th percentile by amount. For an early-stage device maker, non-dilutive federal funding extends the runway without ceding equity — a meaningful edge while Voro moves through trials and toward a commercial decision.
Image credit: Levee Medical
