Lombard Medical: At Long Last, Turning The Corner In EVAR

Article preview from IN VIVO - November, 2011

Lombard Medical’s early efforts to tap into the endovascular AAA market ran into problems as the company’s initial financing strategy left it with too few resources to overcome the challenges that most start-up device companies face. The company’s most recent financing, a VIPE led by UK-investor Abingworth, should see Lombard through FDA approval and launch of its novel EVAR device that is targeted at patients with high degrees of vascular tortuosity. Early clinical data show its device is performing well against competition.

Lombard Medical: At Long Last, Turning The Corner In EVAR

Article preview from IN VIVO - November, 2011

Successful device development has always rested on a kind of virtuous cycle – innovative designs to treat unmet clinical needs in a large market, backed by a talented management team and a strong financing base. But as the challenges of device development become more pressing, the virtuous cycle turns into a vicious one – with any failure of any of the components threatening to scuttle a successful product launch.

 Just over a decade ago, Lombard Medical Technologies PLC came on the scene with a novel and very promising design to treat abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) and scored an early success in its initial clinical studies in treating AAAs in particularly tortuous vessels, success that had surgeons optimistic that one of AAAs biggest problem areas had finally found a solution. The company struck an early alliance with a leading multinational and seemed on its way, either to a lucrative exit or to creating a major player in this fast-evolving field.

But AAA repair, and in particular endovascular repair, has never been an easy play. Nearly all of the large, multinational companies that have staked out claims in the space stumbled in their initial efforts, and major problems remain in device design and development, including problems of endoleaks and migration. Lombard, for its part, ran into problems as well, as its initial funding proved insufficient and the company’s early listing on AIM, the public exchange, did little to shore up its shaky financing.

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