Financing to Support Phase III Clinical Trial and International Commercialization of AQUABEAM® for the Treatment of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia
REDWOOD SHORES, California, July 7, 2015 – PROCEPT BioRobotics, a privately held medical device company based in Silicon Valley, announced today the closing of $42 million in a venture round of equity financing led by Novo A/S. New investor CPMG, Inc. and existing investors also participated in the round.
PROCEPT’s AQUABEAM System combines image guidance and robotics to deliver Aquablation, a novel minimally invasive waterjet ablation therapy that enables targeted, controlled, and heat-free removal of tissue for the treatment of lower urinary tract symptoms.
PROCEPT will use the proceeds from the financing for a limited commercial launch of AQUABEAM in targeted international markets and to conduct the WATER study (Waterjet Ablation Therapy for Endoscopic Resection of prostate tissue), a randomized blinded controlled clinical trial. PROCEPT has received conditional approval from the FDA for an investigational device exemption trial in the United States to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of Aquablation.
“We appreciate the strong support from our new and existing investors to help PROCEPT offer Aquablation to patients and to share our vision by recognizing AQUABEAM’s potential to revolutionize the treatment paradigm for prostate disease,” said Nikolai Aljuri, Ph.D., founder and chief executive officer of PROCEPT BioRobotics. “We look forward to the initiation later this year of the WATER study, our global Phase III clinical study which will compare the safety and effectiveness of Aquablation to the current standard of care, transurethral resection of the prostate, or TURP, for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia.”
Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is a non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate gland which can result in irritation or blockage of the urethra and obstruction of the urinary system. Standard surgical procedures for BPH utilize heat (high thermal energy technologies) to remove or reduce the size of the prostate to improve symptoms and urine flow. While these procedures result in significant improvements in symptoms and urinary flow rates, there are significant side effects associated with these techniques including bleeding, dysuria, incontinence, and sexual dysfunction. Other interventional therapy options offer a trade-off between improvement of patient symptoms and a risk of complications. There is a need for a minimally invasive solution that offers both a sustainable and significant improvement to quality of life and a reduced risk of adverse effects, including sexual side effects.
“The clinical data generated by PROCEPT BioRobotics to date are very promising and we hope the pivotal trial will demonstrate Aquablation has the potential to become the new standard of care for BPH treatment” said Jack Nielsen, Partner at Novo A/S. Antal Desai, Partner at CPMG, Inc., added “We are excited to partner with and support the talented team at PROCEPT. They have developed a disruptive technology that addresses a profound unmet need for millions of patients suffering from BPH.”
About PROCEPT BioRobotics
PROCEPT BioRobotics is a medical device company that develops a novel minimally invasive technology to surgically treat prostate disease. The first product developed is the AQUABEAM, an intelligent image-guided robotic system delivering Aquablation, a personalized waterjet tissue resection modality. Under real-time image-based ultrasonic guidance, AQUABEAM enables surgical planning and mapping, and allows for a controlled resection of the prostate with a high-velocity saline stream. The combination of surgical mapping and controlled resection of the prostate is designed to offer predictable and reproducible outcomes which will enable quicker adoption and scaling of the technology. The company is privately held and headquartered in Redwood Shores, California. The AQUABEAM is not currently available for sale in the United States.
About Novo A/S
Novo A/S (Novo) is a private limited liability company fully owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Besides being the majority shareholder in Novo Nordisk A/S and Novozymes A/S, Novo provides seed capital (through Novo Seeds), venture capital (through Novo Ventures), and growth capital (through Novo Growth Equity) to development stage companies within life science and biotechnology. Novo also manages a broad portfolio of financial assets. For further information visit www.novo.dk.
About CPMG, Inc
CPMG, Inc. (CPMG) is an investment management company that employs a concentrated, value-oriented approach to investing in publicly-traded and private operating companies. The partners of CPMG have led or participated in numerous private investment transactions with an aggregate value in excess of $1 billion. These transactions involve companies in various stages of development. CPMG’s assets under management are approximately $1.4 billion.