SEP leads $18m round for medical device firm Stentys
Scottish Equity Partners has led an $18 million ‘Series B’ funding round for cardio-vascular device specialist Stentys which has developed an innovative device to make treating patients with heart disease safer and more efficient.
The investment in the Paris-headquartered company was also supported by existing investors Sofinnova Partners. Stentys will use the funds to accelerate its progress towards attaining European regulatory approval for its novel device.
Brian Kerr, a Partner at SEP will join the Stentys board. Kerr said: “Stentys has achieved a major breakthrough in terms of patient safety, ease of use for cardiologists and clinical efficacy. It has a high calibre management team and it has made rapid progress towards obtaining regulatory approval. There is a $1 billion plus market opportunity for its product and we are confident that the company will deliver significant value.”
Stentys’ Chief Executive and co-founder, Gonzague Issenmann said: “We are very proud to have the most prestigious European VCs as our financial backers, and we are delighted to welcome Brian to our Board of Directors.”
Stentys has developed a specialist next-generation stent (small metal mesh tube) which is highly effective in treating patients with complex blocked coronary arteries, reducing the likelihood of them requiring open-heart surgery.
The device is aimed at treating bifurcated arteries, which is where one main vessel branches out into two. In up to 25% of cases patients with blocked bifurcated arteries suffer a recurrence when treated using conventional stents.
Stentys’ new drug-coated bifurcated stent offers significant advantages as it can be more accurately positioned to suit a patient’s anatomy, reducing the risk of a recurrence.
Stentys is led by a world-class management team with significant commercial, technical, and medical expertise and its Scientific Advisory Board includes some of the world’s most pre-eminent cardiologists. It has made rapid progress since start-up in 2005 including undertaking a number of successful Pan-European patient trials.
