EIC Accelerator Provides Intelligent Implants 4.5 Million Euros Financing

Intelligent Implants is 4.5 million euros richer, thanks to a financing contribution from the European Union (EU) EIC Accelerator program.

“We are excited to be one of two Swedish companies to receive the EIC accelerator funding. Being the flagship program for SMEs its highly competitive,” said John Zellmer, CEO and co-founder of Intelligent Implants. “This funding from the European Commission and our previous Breakthrough Device Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) endorses the large unmet clinical need and the disruptive potential with our approach. I would like to thank the efforts from members of our team, Zaz Ventures, partners, and the support from the community here at the AstraZeneca Bioventurehub in Gothenburg.“

Intelligent Implants SmartFuse technology is a wirelessly enabled orthopedics platform that has been designed to remotely stimulate, control, and monitor bone growth. The goal of the SmartFuse system is to accelerate bone growth and provide remote monitoring of the patient to support real-time clinical decision-making. The first indication for the SmartFuse system will be for use in lumbar spinal fusions.
 
One of the most expensive and invasive medical procedures, spinal fusion surgery is the only option for a large population of patients suffering from chronic back pain. After many decades of progress, roughly 18 percent of 1.5 million worldwide annual spinal fusion surgeries still fail, leading to devastating complications and immense healthcare waste. A failed fusion impacts the patient, payer, and hospitals through continued impaired quality of life, overexposure of radiation, expensive revision surgeries with poor outcomes, and long hospital stays. The non-union rate is at least 18 percent. Despite this significant unmet clinical need, there has been shockingly little transformative innovation in the field of orthopadics, and specifically, devices for spinal fusion.
 
Operating at the intersection of digital health and orthopedics, Intelligent Implantsis provides solutions to some of the most pressing unmet clinical needs by developing products designed to accelerate bone healing, improve clinical outcomes, and patient quality of life, and minimize the financial and human costs associated with the treatment of degenerative disc disease and other orthopedic conditions.SmartFuse is not approved for human use or sale in any geography.
  
The EIC Accelerator supports individual small and medium enterprises (SMEs), in particular startups and spinout companies to develop and scaleup game-changing innovations. EIC selected companies receive coaching, mentoring, access to investors and other opportunities as part of the EIC community. EIC Accelerator is included in Horizon Europe, which is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation with a budget of 95.5 billion euros.