Gecko Biomedical Receives 1.4 Million Euros in Interest-Free Loan from Bpifrance to Advance Its Bio-Inspired Surgical Adhesive Solutions
Business Wire: June 30, 2016 – PARIS, France – Gecko Biomedical (“Gecko”), a French medical device company developing innovative polymers to support tissue healing, announced today that it has received an interest-free loan of 1.4 million euros from Bpifrance to advance its bio-inspired surgical adhesive solutions.
These funds will be dedicated to supporting Gecko Biomedical clinical trials in Europe in order to obtain CE Mark in the first half of 2017.
The funds are part of Bpifrance’s support of innovation through its interest-free loan program (Prêt à Taux Zéro pour l’Innovation– PTZI), providing repayable advances to encourage the development of innovative products.
Christophe Bancel, Gecko Biomedical’s chief executive officer, said, “Bpifrance’s continuous support not only provides us with financial stability towards our future, but also is a testimony of the value of our biopolymers platform. As such, Bpifrance is a central stakeholder to our short, medium, and long-term development.”
Gecko Biomedical is a privately owned medical device company based in Paris, France, that is dedicated to the rapid development and commercialization of a unique biopolymers platform. Gecko’s first product (GB-02) is an innovative polymer for tissue healing, targeting cardiovascular reconstruction as an initial indication. The structure of GB-02 is tunable, allowing customization for various applications and tissues. Gecko’s biopolymers platform is fully industrialized and highly versatile, with potential novel applications in other fields of tissue reconstruction, such as guided tissue repair and localized drug delivery.
Gecko’s platform is based on proprietary biopolymers with unique chemical and physical properties, including high viscosity, hydrophobicity and fast “on demand” curing for precise local delivery and in situ adhesion. The company’s technologies are derived from world-class research and intellectual property from the laboratories of Prof. Robert Langer (MIT) and Prof. Jeff Karp (Brigham and Women’s Hospital), who co-founded the company in 2013, alongside Christophe Bancel and Bernard Gilly from the iBionext Network. For more information, please visit www.geckobiomedical.com and follow @geckobiomedical.
Bpifrance, a subsidiary of Caisse des Dépôts and the French State, is a trusted partner of entrepreneurs that provides companies with credit, collateral, and equity financing support from start up through to stock exchange listing. Bpifrance also provides guidance services and enhanced support for innovation, external growth, and export, in partnership with Business France and Coface.
Bpifrance offers companies a continuum of financing for each key stage of their development and an offer adapted to specific regional features. With 42 regional offices (90% of decisions are made regionally), Bpifrance offers entrepreneurs a tool for economic competitiveness. Bpifrance works in support of the public policies pursued nationally and regionally by the French government, to meet three objectives:
• support the growth of businesses;
• prepare for future competitiveness;
• contribute to the development of a favorable ecosystem for entrepreneurship.
With Bpifrance, companies have a strong and effective local contact to meet all their financial, innovation and investment needs. For more information, please visit www.bpifrance.fr, http://investissementsdavenir.bpifrance.fr/, Twitter: @bpifrance.
