Pathfinder Secures £8.5M Co-Funding

Deepbridge has today (19 January 2022) announced that Pathfinder Medical, a portfolio company within the Deepbridge Life Sciences EIS fund has secured a further £8.5 million funding round, led by BGF and Parkwalk.  

This multi-million-pound investment has been raised to support additional pre-clinical work, complete a pivotal trial in patients, and ultimately secure regulatory approval prior to commercialisation in key medical markets across the world. To date, the businessPathfinder Medical has received over £15 million of funding from investors including Deepbridge which made its first investment in the company in 2016 and in aggregate contributed some £3.2m to date. 

Pathfinder was co-founded in 2014 by Robert Dickinson and CEO Sorin Popa following the latter's research at Imperial College London into the use of electric fields for guidance in medical device procedures. The company has developed a proprietary technology to guide and accurately align catheters in endovascular procedures which allows for clinicians to make connections across blood vessels in the body without the need for open surgery. 

The key application of the technology is in the dialysis field, where a robust connection needs to be made between an artery and a vein to enable the filtering of the blood. Traditionally, this was done through an open surgical procedure (an AVF), whereas Pathfinders’ device enables a minimally invasive, endovascular approach (endoAVF). This helps avoid surgical trauma, improving the outcomes for patients with kidney failure while also generating cost savings for payers. 

The multi-million-pound investment has been raised to support additional pre-clinical work, complete a pivotal trial in patients, and ultimately secure regulatory approval prior to commercialisation in key medical markets across the world. To date, the business has received over £6 million of funding to date from investors including Deepbridge, a consortium of angels and specialist grant funders. 

Dr Savvas Neophytou, Partner and Head of Life Sciences at Deepbridge Capital, commented: 

“We are delighted to have supported the Pathfinder team in securing this next stage of growth capital and welcome BGF and Parkwalk to the table. The Company has exciting plans, with this funding being critical for the completion of the next vital stages of the Company’s development. We look forward to continuing to work with the team and our fellow co-funders, on their next stage of growth.” 

Sorin Popa, CEO of Pathfinder Medical, added:  

“There are over three million dialysis patients worldwide and every year patients undergo nearly 650,000 surgical AVF creation procedures. However, these procedures take a long time to heal and are prone to failure. Our technology has the power to significantly improve the outcomes for dialysis patients, improving their quality of life and saving millions of pounds in the process. We are delighted to have the support of BGF and Parkwalk to help the business move forward with our clinical trials and ultimately roll-out this ground-breaking product to a global market.” 

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