Sofinnova Partners Announces the Sale of ReCor Medical to Otsuka Holdings

Sofinnova Partners, a leading venture capital firm specialized in Life Sciences, today announced that 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, MD, 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 ParadiseÒ 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&rsq