Braveheart Investments yesterday said it had joined forces with Sir Tom Farmer, Scottish Enterprise and merchant bank Quayle Munro to invest more than £500,000 in a further funding round for life science business Tayside Flow Technologies.
The latest cash injection means Tayside Flow has raised more than £1.7m in equity and debt funding, in spite of the gloom prevailing in funding markets.
The Dundee-based life science business is developing a new generation of heart implants.
Its technology is based on restoring the natural bloodflow pattern in healthy veins and arteries via the incorporation of its proprietary spiral laminar flow systems into the design of implants such as stents.
The company’s lead product is a peripheral vascular graft that is used to bypass blocked arteries.
Braveheart, which led the funding round, said the new cash will be used to provide working capital to accelerate the commercial traction of Tayside Flow’s graft business.
The funding also marks a further investment in the company by Kwik Fit entrepreneur Farmer and Quayle Munro.
To date the company’s main product has secured regulatory approval for both the European and US markets, with further approvals anticipated in 2010. Around 30 distributors have been appointed in key markets.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the western world, contributing to more than seven million deaths a year.
The company’s second product – an access graft for use mainly in dialysis patients – is planned for launch in mid-2010.
Braveheart chief executive Geoffrey Thomson said: “Tayside Flow Technologies continues to prove the credibility of its technology through the commercialisation of its lead product, the peripheral vascular graft.
“We are pleased to be able to offer continued support to another of our existing portfolio companies.”
Tayside Flow Technologies was formed in 1998 out of Dundee’s Ninewells Hospital by three heart specialists led by Peter Stonebridge, a consultant vascular surgeon, to commercialise research on the way blood flows in arteries.
marks.smith@theherald.co.uk
