Imperial Innovations co-leads £5M funding round for Veryan Medical

Imperial Innovations Group plc, a leading technology commercialisation and investment company, and Seroba Kernel Life Sciences have led a £5m funding round for the portfolio company, Veryan Medical, which is developing innovative solutions for vascular disease using the principles of biomimicry.

Innovations and Seroba Kernel each invested approximately half of the funds raised.  Dr Geoffrey Vernon, the Chairman of Veryan Medical, also invested in this round.  This follows a £3.6m funding round in March 2010 where Innovations and Seroba Kernel invested £1.1m and £1.8m respectively.To date Innovations has invested a total of £8.9m in Veryan Medical and holds a 48.4% stake in the Company.  John Holden, Innovations’ Director of Investments, is a non-executive director on the Board.

Veryan’s BioMimics 3D™ stent technology aims to mimic the natural shape and geometry of the human vascular system. It involves transposing a three dimensional helical shape onto a traditional straight stent. Pre-clinical studies have shown that BioMimics3D stents are more flexible, more kink resistant and more fracture resistant than straight stents.  They also impart swirling flow of blood through the stent, which has been shown to reduce restenosis (the renarrowing of stented arterial segments). Existing stent technologies have demonstrated poor clinical performance in certain indications and exhibit inadequate mechanical properties, leading to stent fracture and suboptimal clinical results.

The BioMimics3D stent is initially targeted at the market for peripheral stents which exceeds £1 billion per year.  This market is growing at around 20% per annum, due to new technology and expanding indications for vascular stents.

Veryan has completed enrollment of patients in its European study. This prospective randomized study has been conducted in Germany with Professor Thomas Zeller as the Principal Investigator. Initial results from this study confirm that the excellent preclinical results can be transferred to human clinical experience. Veryan will apply for CE mark in the near future. This latest funding will be employed to progress the Company towards a clinical study in the USA to achieve FDA approval.