Tissium co-founders, Maria Pereira and Christophe Bancel | Image credit: Tissium
Paris-based Tissium, a privately-owned medtech company that develops biomorphic programmable polymers for tissue reconstruction, announced that it has raised €50M in its Series C round of funding.
Investors in this round
The round was led by Cathay Health, affiliated to investment firm Cathay Capital, and joined by other institutional and individual backers. Existing investor Sofinnova Partners also participated in this round.
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With this investment, Cathay Health co-founder and managing partner Hongjie Hu will be joining Tissium’s board of directors.
Hu says, “Tissium is creating the future of tissue reconstruction on all continents. Its expandable platform is solving widespread problems in surgeries addressing the needs of atraumatic repairs and can be applied to multiple, large, unmet therapeutic areas. We look forward to supporting Tissium’s team in its international expansion and for the next steps toward commercialisation and growth.”
Capital utilisation
The proceeds from this round will help Tissium to continue scaling its operations and increasing its workforce. The funds will also help it to commercialise its nerve repair, hernia repair, and cardiovascular sealant products.
With product development in therapeutic areas, Tissium will continue to expand its services in international markets, leveraging in-house production and manufacturing facilities, as well as entering into partnerships in certain verticals.
Speaking on the development, Christophe Bancel, CEO of Tissium, says, “With the closing of our Series C financing round, Tissium is well-positioned to take the next steps to commercialisation. This funding significantly bolsters our ability to move with speed towards our goal of enhancing tissue reconstruction for patients. This financing will contribute significantly to Tissium’s ability to take advantage of the variety of opportunities we have to advance our innovation in this space.”
“Creating the future of tissue reconstruction”
Tissium claims to address perhaps the most persistent medical challenges since the inception of surgical procedures: to reconstruct damaged tissue and restore its natural function.
The company’s technology is based on research and intellectual property from the laboratories of Professor Robert Langer (MIT) and Professor Jeffrey M. Karp (Brigham and Women’s Hospital), who co-founded the company in 2013.
The privately-owned medtech company is dedicated to the development and commercialisation of a biopolymer platform to address multiple unmet clinical needs, including atraumatic tissue repair and reconstruction.
Currently, Tissium has a pipeline of seven products across three verticals – nerve, hernia and cardiovascular. It also develops delivery and activation devices for enhanced performance and usability of its products.
Programmable polymers
The company says its polymer technology is based on the combination of safe and naturally occurring compounds, such as glycerol and sebacic acid.
The high viscous pre-polymer can be applied to tissues with minimal displacement by body fluids during surgical procedures. It is then activated using a visible blue light. The resulting bond is both adhesive and elastic, allowing the polymer to comply with the underlying tissue while remaining strongly adhered.
The pre-polymer can also be used as a resin to build high-resolution 3D-printed devices. It can also be loaded with drugs and deployed potentially anywhere in the body, creating a depot that elutes drugs locally for extended periods.
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