During the first semester of 2021, our EIC-funded companies from the digital health arena were already part of the investment trends. By the end of the year, we could see that the sector continued to shape the investment market, since health innovation is critical for a society with an increasing life expectancy. This article shares the stories of 3 EIC beneficiary start-ups from the healthcare sector that received some booster shots of investment before wrapping 2021.
€6 million for a ground-breaking cancer immunotherapy
Asgard Therapeutics is a biotech company working in vivo cell reprogramming to deliver immune genes into the tumour and re-educate cancer cells to become anti-tumour immune cells. This aims to be a paradigm-shifting cancer immunotherapy approach based on a technology developed by the company and called TrojanDC. To further improve their research and technology development, Asgard has recently completed a €6 million seed financing round.
Cristiana Pires, co-founder & CEO of Asgard Therapeutics, talked to us about the investment: "This seed financing round co-led by Novo Holdings, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and Industrifonden will allow us to progress on the preclinical development of our in-vivo reprogramming programs. The support we have received from such a strong syndicate of life science investors allows us to build on Asgard's commitment to developing personalised, cost-effective cancer immunotherapies for all patients in need.".
Read more about it here.
€5 million to improve medical implants' postoperative success
Hylomorph is a MedTech start-up that aims to minimise post-surgical complications in medical implants, thus improving patients' quality of life and reducing associated healthcare costs. Their technology addresses all causes of severe complications connected to the implantation of synthetic materials by protecting implantable medical devices in contact with soft tissues from foreign body reactions. Last month the company announced the successful completion of a €5 million Series B financing round that will help them obtain legal approval in the European and American markets.
"The ongoing EIC-project and respective funds are funnelled into our first in human clinical trial, which is a pre-requisite towards CE mark under their Medical Device Regulation, for our first lead product.", said Simone Bottan, Founder & CEO of Hylomorph. He continued to add: "We aim at becoming a leading player in the prevention of postoperative complications in implantable medical devices, and this capital injection will support us to expand our into new markets, new geographies and new patients' needs.".
Read more about it here.
€5.3 million to reduce stroke risk during heart procedures
Filterlex Medical is a cardiovascular medical device start-up whose goal is to develop the next generation embolic protection device to reduce the risk of stroke and other complications during catheter-based structural heart procedures. Filterlex has completed a series A1 investment round of around €5.3 million from leading private healthcare investors. The funding will support the company in developing its own clinical program, CAPTIS, that is currently ongoing in two medical centres in Israel.
As explained by Sigal Eli, Founder & CEO of Filterlex, the company is looking forward to the following steps: "We are excited by the rapid closing of the new round of funding. With the excellent progress in our clinical program and the recent move to our larger facility in Caesarea, we are well-positioned to deliver our vision of making the CAPTIS a best-in-class device."
Read more about it here.
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.