The European Investment Bank (EIB) has signed a €15 million quasi-equity financing agreement with
medical technology company Xeltis, based in Eindhoven in the Netherlands. Xeltis is pioneering a
restorative approach in heart valve replacement and vascular therapies, overcoming the limitations of
existing options.
Xeltis’ so-called endogenous tissue restoration (ETR) uses the patient’s natural healing system to restore heart valves and blood vessels with the patient’s own tissue. The EIB’s non-dilutive financing will support the acceleration of clinical programmes for three of Xeltis’ revolutionary, restorative devices. The financing is being made available under the European Guarantee Fund (EGF), an EIB Group initiative in partnership with EU Member States to support European companies whose business was impacted negatively by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Science fiction
“In terms of medical technology innovations, what Xeltis is doing almost sounds like science fiction, yet it is already here,” said EIB Vice-President Kris Peeters. “I think Europe can be proud that it is a breeding ground for such cutting-edge technology, which has the potential to significantly impact medical care in a number of fields. I am proud that, with help of the European Guarantee Fund, we can get behind Xeltis to help them accelerate their way out of this difficult global phase.”
Eliane Schutte, Xeltis CEO, added: “EIB financial support can make the difference in the time our restorative heart valves and blood vessels reach patients that today have limited or no options at all for their conditions. Xeltis has the most advanced restorative technology platform in cardiovascular medicine and may positively impact millions of lives.”
Nobel price
Xeltis’ devices are vascular grafts and heart valves designed to turn into living valves and vessels by harnessing the body’s natural healing process and by facilitating tissue formation once implanted. Xeltis’ devices are made of supramolecular polymers shaped — through a process called electrospinning — into a microstructure that allows tissue restoration. Leveraging the versatility of its technology platform, which can be used to improve many types of implants,
Xeltis initiated the development of three types of cardiovascular implants: pulmonary heart valves, coronary artery bypass graft and haemodialysis access grafts, the roll-out of which is set to be accelerated by this EIB financing.
Xeltis is a Swiss-Dutch clinical-stage medical device company, pioneering a restorative approach in cardiovascular therapy. Based on the revolutionary supramolecular polymer materials co-invented by Professor Jean-Marie Lehn (who received a Nobel Prize in 1987 for this technology), Xeltis’ proprietary technology platform enables the patient’s own body to naturally restore a new blood vessel or heart valve.
Initially acting as normal synthetic grafts (valve or vessel), the molecular chemistry of Xeltis’ products allow the colonisation of the polymer by human cells and its progressive replacement by healthy tissue until full and complete restoration and takeover of natural valve or vessel function. Xeltis is currently the most advanced regenerative cardiovascular platform based on polymer technology with several products at the clinical stage.
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