Israeli medical device company MitrAssist has raised $50 million at a company valuation of $300 million. Current investors Chinese Fosun Pharma and insurance company Ping-An were joined in the latest financing round by four large Chinese funds. This brings $85 million the amount raised by the company.
The company has developed a medical valve that is inserted into a catheter for symptomatic patients with primary or secondary mitral regurgitation, who are at high risk for surgery or with prevention of surgery. MitrAssist began successful human trials about a year ago, and plans to begin marketing in about two years. The company plans hiring more employees in early 2021 to develop more ideas in the field of structural heart diseases.
MitrAssist Medical was founded in 2009 by CEO Gil Naor on the basis of an innovative idea that he had devised to treat a heart valve problem that lowers the standard of living of hundreds of thousands of people each year. The company has developed a valve for replacement with a full catheter without the need for long and dangerous surgery that requires a complete stop of the heart. Today, hundreds of thousands of people who need valve replacement cannot be treated because they do not meet the criteria for open heart surgery. The company's unique valve will allow all those patients to receive the treatment required to significantly prolong their lives.
Naor said, "This is a challenging time to raise funding, but the importance of the product for the care of patients is too high for us to wait for the reality to change. The current recruitment will allow the company to complete the clinical trials to prove the efficacy and safety of the product and reach the Chinese market and the company's planned production in 2024. "
He added, "There are now a large number of companies in the world that are developing parallel products to treat the mitral valve problem and technologies are evolving at an increasing rate, but the road to an optimal solution is still long."
The company has 15 employees in its 1,000 square meters offices in the Caesarea Industrial Park.
This financing round, as well as the previous one, was supported in Israel by Advs. Yair Geva and Yuval Zilber from the Herzog Fox Neeman law firm.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 2, 2020
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2020