Life Sciences Partners leads Sequana Medical series-C

NeoMed Management remains the largest investor in the company, alongside VI Partners, Capricorn Venture Partners, BioMed Partners and Entrepreneurs Fund.

The fresh capital will be used for global commercial expansion, the initiation of US clinical studies and the application of the company's alfapump technology to new clinical markets. A trial will be completed later this year at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

LSP has invested via its Health Economics Fund, which was launched in 2012. The fund's cornerstone investor is Achmea, a Dutch healthcare insurance company. Strategic investor Menzis also contributed, as did family offices and semi-institutional investors. The fund's strategy is to invest in late-stage private healthcare companies that have products on the market or are very close to market introduction.

Previous funding
According to unquote" data, NeoMed and VI Partners invested €4.4m in Sequana in September 2006. A series-B round followed in April 2011 with Capricorn, BioMed and Entrepreneur Fund co-leading a CHF 23.7m investment alongside the existing backers.

Company
Founded in 2006 in California as NovaShunt, the company relocated to Zurich in 2007 using proceeds from its series-A funding round, which it also used to hire technical staff and to complete the final design of its alfapump system. Following its series-B round, the company renamed itself Sequana Medical.

The company's core technology is a fully implantable pump system designed to move excess fluid to the bladder, where it is passed naturally from the body through normal urination. Its first product, the alfapump system, aims to provide a solution for the management of ascites. Refractory ascites is a common complication in patients suffering from liver cirrhosis and certain cancers, and affects more than 100,000 patients per year in Europe and the US, according to Sequana.

People
Noel Johnson is the CEO of Sequana. Rudy Dekeyser is managing partner at LSP's Health Economics Fund and will join Sequana's board of directors.

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• Life Science Partners