Dallas-based medical device company MicroTransponder Inc. received $2.2 million in private funding last month - the latest round of more than $4.85 million of funding in the last 11 months - to develop a wireless neurostimulation system to treat chronic pain.

The funding, which came from private investors, will help the University of Texas at Dallas spinout company develop a prototype and conduct human clinical trials by year-end. The company finished its pre-clinical trials on animals in February, said Jordan Curnes, MicroTransponder's chief operating officer.

If all goes as hoped, the device could go to market as early as 2010, Curnes said.

"The economic impact is estimated by the hundreds of millions of dollars," he said.

More than 30 million Americans suffer from severe chronic pain, with the market for neurostimulation devices estimated at about $1.4 billion annually, Curnes said.

Other device makers, such as Minneapolis-based Medtronic Inc. (NYSE: MDT) and St. Paul, Minn.-based St. Jude Medical, have seen sales growth of 13% to 22% over the last two to three years, Curnes said.

In addition, MicroTransponder and its rivals are watching the National Neurotechnology Initiative Act, introduced in both the House and Senate last month.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas, became a co-sponsor of the bill. It calls for hundreds of millions of dollars for neurotechnology research and the speedier approval of brain-related drugs, devices and diagnostics.

"Brain health diagnosis and treatment are critical to the life quality of millions of Americans - including our troops," Sessions said in an e-mailed statement.

Curnes said MicroTransponder's device would be different from its competitors' because its device is wireless and "smaller than the size of a grain of rice.".

"We've figured out how to deliver the same technology (as Medtronic and St. Jude) - only wireless," Curnes said.

The wireless device would consist of a tiny microchip that physicians inject right above the area where patient feels pain. Patients would send electrical pulses to the area of pain with the push of a button. Those electrical pulses help to block the pain, he said.

The company has about a dozen full-time employees and added three executives in the last month. Scott Armstrong, who most recently was director of engineering at Houston-based Cyberonics (NasdaqGM: CYBX), was named chief technology officer; Paul McArthur, former chief scientist for California-based Advanced Bionics LLC, was named chief scientific officer; and Dr. Richard Weiner, former chief of neurosurgery at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, was named chief medical officer. The company expects to double its staff over the next year, Curnes said.

Research and development activity involving wireless and remote monitoring in hospital and home health care has been growing, said Hubert Zajicek, director of the North Texas Enterprise Center for Medical Technology, a nonprofit that assists entrepreneurs.

"It is a very strong field - and we feel that there's going to be a lot of progress made there in the next few years," he said.