The endovascular technique, less invasive than open surgery, involves passing through the vascular system to perform a therapeutic action. In short, the practitioner is guided by advanced medical imagery, introduces a catheter through a patient’s leg or arm artery, and then pushes it along a guide up to the area to diagnose and/or treat. This procedure allows the access to the targeted area.
While endovascular procedures have become the therapeutic references of many pathologies, notably in neurology (e.g. for strokes), current solutions are limited to the use of passive catheters navigated on flexible guides, all presenting a strong performance issue. Indeed, due to tortuous and sometimes highly complex anatomies, it is estimated that 20 to 25% of procedures require the use of alternative techniques, costly in time and equipment (use of multiple catheters, complex procedures…) and with no guarantee of ultimate success. To improve these therapeutics, a few new technologies have emerged, based on the use of active catheters, however they all present to date limitations regarding cost, bulkiness and actual usability in clinical routine. As a consequence, they are not used at this stage by medical practitioners.
In this context, the demand for new, safe, efficient and cost-effective solutions is very high, even more so as endovascular procedures are often used for highly critical, very frequent medical conditions. Typically, strokes currently represents the second cause of death at world level, i.e. around 6 million casualties a year and 17 million people affecting with a stroke (World Health Organisation). In France, it is also the first national cause of acquired handicap in adults (French Health Ministry).
There is therefore a true health public issue to be addressed at the global level, to which Basecamp Vascular (BCV), a French SME created in 2016, contributes to bring a high level medical and scientific answer.
BCV develops a breakthrough medical device (MULTICURVE) combining electronics and precision mechanics: a new type of active catheter-guide, adjustable on demand, which can adapt to individual anatomical variations of each patient, thus allowing a safer, faster and more efficient action compared to current techniques. Such device fits fully with the personalised medicine ambition, without entailing a crippling cost or bulkiness, allowing for its daily use in clinical routine in the operating room.
To date, a first version of this device has been achieved and will soon enter in a regulatory and clinical step for the obtaining of EC marking and subsequent commercialisation (planned for 2021).
In this frame, the SME-Instrument phase 1 has been important to support us in the refinement of our business strategy, notably regarding the market access, the positioning of the MULTICURVE device, and the overall commercial strategy to implement (model, pricing, distribution, production, communication…).
Notably, it contributed to a fundraise of 2 million euros that was realised in July 2018, right after the achievement of the project, through bringing us with relevant and realistic technical and financial roadmaps and forecasts, needed for our investors.
