ReCor Medical Sold to Otsuka Holdings

Sofinnova Partners, a venture capital firm specialized in life sciences, has announced Otsuka Holdings is acquiring its portfolio company ReCor Medical, a medical device company specialized in the treatment of hypertension. The terms of the acquisition are being withheld due to non-disclosure obligations.
 
ReCor Medical was created in 2009 by Sofinnova Partners’ Mano Iyer—who was then entrepreneur-in-residence at Sofinnova Partners and now chief operating officer of ReCor—and Professor Jacques Seguin, M.D., who became a large private investor in ReCor. Prof. Seguin was previously founder and CEO of CoreValve, a past Sofinnova portfolio company and a leader in the transcatheter valve replacement space, which was sold to Medtronic. Sofinnova Partners was the sole venture capital investor in ReCor Medical and remained its largest shareholder until the sale to Otsuka.
 
ReCor Medical is an innovative medical device company that developed the Paradise System, a proprietary ultrasound ablation system for renal denervation (RDN). RDN is a new potential therapeutic approach for the treatment of hypertension, one of the most prevalent medical conditions. ReCor recently announced positive results of its landmark RADIANCE-HTN SOLO hypertension study at EuroPCR 2018.
 
Antoine Papiernik, managing partner at Sofinnova Partners and ReCor Board Member, said, “ReCor perfectly illustrates our investment strategy: we worked hand-in-hand with Mano Iyer to create the business vision and plan for ReCor. We then founded and funded the company, and opened our network of experts, key opinion leaders and board members to help grow it. We brought trusted entrepreneurs Jay Watkins as chairman and Andy Weiss as CEO to help guide and operate the company through to a corporate transaction to our partner Otsuka.”
 
Jay Watkins, chairman of ReCor Medical, said, “Sofinnova Partners remains one of few VCs willing to fund early-stage med-tech ventures targeting large and important new markets. The firm played a critical role throughout ReCor’s life, and has proven to be a reliable, value-added partner for the company. The field of renal denervation has been a complex one over the last few years with periods of euphoria and periods of doubt. Sofinnova Partners’ support remained constant throughout, helping to build a strong partnership with Otsuka and then navigate through the challenges to a very successful trade sale.”
 
Mano Iyer, founder and COO of ReCor Medical, added, “ReCor is a success story because Sofinnova Partners, consistent with its philosophy, saw the value of an opportunity which did not yet exist. It had the vision to create and fund the company, not only in the very beginning, but also during the critical early years. Despite the dramatic swings in the field, Sofinnova Partners’ confidence in me and in the management team was essential to keep us motivated when others lost hope. This great exit is therefore particularly sweet.”
 
Andrew M. Weiss, CEO of ReCor Medical adds, “I came to ReCor thanks to Antoine Papiernik’s introduction to the company. With his help, our team developed the partnership with Otsuka and was able to remain focused on value creation. The recent announcement of our positive RADIANCE-HTN SOLO study results and now the merger with Otsuka demonstrate that our teamwork with Sofinnova Partners was successful. We now have an opportunity to transform the treatment of hypertension and benefit millions of potential patients while providing a solid return for our investors. I look forward to continuing to work to make this technology a possible standard of care in hypertension treatment.”