Aortyx, the Barcelona-based medtech scaleup and member of our Cardiovascular Therapies market group, has raised a 13.8M EUR Series A funding round led by Ship2B Ventures and Clave Capital. The funding will be used to reach the milestone of first-in-human testing, bringing their product – a bioresorbable patch that treats aortic tears – closer to market.
The Aortyx team is developing a minimally invasive solution to what is called aortic dissection – essentially a tear in the aortic wall. To do so, they have developed a steerable catheter that snakes through the aorta, and shoots out a circular patch that plugs the tear. They have also developed the patch, which is made out of a biodegradable material that also serves as scaffolding to encourage new tissue regrowth.
The founding team is made up of four PhD-holding co-founders: CEO Jordi Martorell, CTO Noemí Balà, CSO Salvador Borrós, and CMO Vicenç Riambau.
Solution to a pressing problem
More than 50,000 Europeans suffer from aortic dissections per year, and Aortyx aims to treat at least half of those with their first-generation product. The alternatives are suboptimal – either invasive open surgery, endovascular repair with stent grafts, or pharmacological treatment to reduce blood pressure. All three strategies incur high short-, mid-, and long-term mortality and morbidity rates that Aortyx aims to diminish with their minimally invasive approach.
“Aortic dissections kill more people than car crashes. What we hope to provide is an option that is effective, long-lasting, and respectful with the aorta to treat aortic dissection and other aortic diseases.” – Jordi Martorell, co-founder and CEO of Aortyx
The technology has been tested with successful outcomes in animals and cadavers. The funding round’s goal is to reach first-in-human testing within two years. The key users of this technology will be vascular and cardiothoracic surgeons.
The round is led by Ship2B Ventures, through BSocial Impact Fund (supported by Banco Sabadell, the EIF, and AXIS), and Clave Capital, through Clave Innohealth (supported by CDTI- Innvierte).
The IP lies in the catheter, deploying hardware, as well as the patch. The bioresorbable patch is manufactured using the electrospinning technique. This is the same concept used by spiders when they create their webs, and allows for creating a controlled, viscoelastic, and biocompatible material.
Read the full official announcement here.
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The EIC Scaling Club is a curated community where 120+ European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth.
The top 120+ European deep tech companies will be carefully selected from a pool of high-growth scale-ups that have benefitted from EIC financial schemes, other European and national innovation programmes, and beyond.
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