The News

Sofinnova Partners' portfolio company Stentys sucessfully raises €22.7M, subject to the exercise of the over-allotment option

22/10/2010

Sofinnova Partners, a Paris-based venture capital firm, today announced that its portfolio company STENTYS successfully raised up to € 22.7 M on NYSE Euronext Paris.
The public offering was more than twice oversubscribed, and the global offering 1.1 time, the offering price was set at €12 per share.

Founded in 2006, by Professor Jacques Séguin and Gonzague Issenmann, STENTYS is a medical technology company that develops a new generation of stents to treat Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI). Sofinnova Partners was the sole institutional investor in STENTYS’ series A, and remains the largest shareholder to this day with 35% of the capital. The cash raised will provide additional resources to ensure the development and the commercialization of STENTYS innovative stents in Europe, pursue post-market studies to confirm the benefits of its medical devices and obtain regulatory approvals to allow commercialization of its products in the United States of America. The ability to successfully complete this IPO in the European life sciences sector demonstrates investor confidence in the market in which STENTYS evolves, in the company’s strategy and in the potential of its new innovative stents to provide a major breakthrough. “This IPO, in which we also invested, represents a great opportunity for STENTYS to boost its development and access new means for expansion. As early stage investors, we mobilise our resources to bring our portfolio companies as far as we can : we see public listing as an efficient way to further their growth”, indicated Antoine Papiernik, Managing Partner at Sofinnova Partners and member of STENTYS Board. Earlier this year, two other Sofinnova Partners’ portfolio companies completed transactions on Euronext markets: Movetis, which raised about €100 M in an IPO before being acquired by Shire for €428m and Ablynx which raised €50M in a secondary offering. “As an historical investor in STENTYS, Sofinnova has proved its capacity to act as a genuine value added VC with a long term approach” said Jacques Séguin, co-founder and Chairman of STENTYS. Prior to STENTYS, Jacques Séguin founded CoreValve, a company in which Sofinnova Partners was also a historical investor, and which was acquired in February 2009 by Medtronic for $700M plus earn-outs, representing one of the largest ever trade sale of a medical devices company financed by venture capital.

About Sofinnova Partners
Sofinnova Partners is an independent venture capital firm based in Paris, France. For over 35 years, the firm has backed nearly 500 companies at different stages of development – pure creations, spin-offs, as well as turnaround situations – and worked alongside Europe’s key entrepreneurs in the technology, life sciences and cleantech sectors. With €1.1 billion of funds under management, Sofinnova Partners’ experienced team and hands-on approach in building portfolio companies through to exit have created market leaders, from landmark historical investments including Genentech, Actelion and Vistaprint to more recent successes such as CoreValve, Novexel, Fovea, Sensitive Object, Movetis and PregLem. With a global mindset, the firm has a sister organization in San Francisco, California.

About Stentys
Based in Paris (France) and Princeton, N.J. (USA), the STENTYS Company has developed a new generation of stents to treat acute myocardial infarction. Founded by Jacques Séguin, Professor of Cardiac Surgery, and Gonzague Issenmann, STENTYS received the CE mark for its flagship products in 2010. Its self-apposing stents adapt the anatomic changes of the arteries in the post-infarction phase and prevents conventional stents mal-apposition problems. STENTYS has started its marketing activities in several European countries.

Media contact for SOFINNOVA PARTNERS
Anne Rein
STRATEGIES & IMAGE
Tel: +33 1 45 88 79 73
anne.rein@strategiesimage.com