This is the final report by Syntach AB as the company has ceased operations on July 6, 2023, as result of not being able to raise capital to fund ongoing operations. Syntach AB was started in 2012 with the mission to develop the Syntach Cardiac Support System (Syntach CS), a device implant intended to restore left ventricular function in patients with advanced heart failure. The company does not have any other product and was dependent on the success of this project.
Since receiving the EIC grant on September 2022 and in addition to focussing on developing Syntach CS in accordance with this project plan, Syntach AB has spent considerable time on raising additional capital to complement EIC funding and to expand its team to meet operational challenges ahead. This included the successful application and award of a €15 million EIB grant for the development of the Syntach CS System (On January 11, 2023, the Company signed the “EIB Fund Indicative Term Sheet) and appointment of Mr. Patrick N.J. Schnegelsberg as the company’s CEO, and Mrs. Cansel Isikli as VP of RA/Q, effective December 1, 2022.
Since then and up until ceasing its operations on July 6, 2023 (all staff were let go effective that day), management, and the board, together with financial advisors have reached out to over 100 investors in the EU, and the United States. In early 2023 it became clear that virtually all potential investors were looking for a complete series of animal data (proof of concept) and human clinical data from first in human studies. To address the former the company invested considerable time and resources to generate comprehensive animal data set demonstration proof of concept. This was completed by June 2023 (see attached deck “Syntach CS Animal Data”). With these data, the company re-approached potential investors it had NDAs with, However, none showed interest, and expected to see human clinical data from first in human studies.
In addition to reaching out to investors, beginning in Q1-2023, Syntach also reached out to potential strategic partners in China and Japan. While some of these discussions advanced to term sheet level, they failed to materialize (downturn of Chinese equity market, and for potential strategic partners in Japan, the lack of human clinical data).
Finally, the company was in talks with a Mexico-based family offices that had committed $2 million in funding but did not follow thought, despite several attempts to close the investment.
Up until ceasing its operations on July 6, 2023, the company has completed the work packages summarized in the table below (Table 1, Work Progress). As reported in February of 2023, Syntach faced issues related to durability of certain device components (WP3) which resulted in delays of planned design transfer (WP4). This resulted in an extension of the overall project to 76 months from the originally planned 55 months. The remainder of the work packages contemplated under this project, however, was not completed. As described above, much of our effort has been focused on task T2.5 “Capure Investment” and on generating proof of concept data. These sub tasks took most of the effort for the team during the first half of 2023.
