Endventric, a vascular medical device company, said on the 13th that its distal access catheter (DAC) medical device for neurovascular intervention has received item approval from the Ministery of Food and Drug Safety.
A DAC is a medical device that creates a path so that a therapeutic device can safely reach the lesion during procedures for cerebral aneurysms or cerebral infarction. Because cerebral blood vessels are often very thin and curved, how smoothly a catheter can track while maintaining sufficient support determines the difficulty and safety of a procedure.
Evoglide is designed with this neurovascular structure in mind and can be used for both aneurysm and stroke interventions. The current DAC market is led by overseas products such as "Sofia" by MicroVention, a U.S. medical device corporations, while Endventric highlighted that it reflects domestic clinical settings and the vascular characteristics of Koreans.
The core technology is the company's proprietary platform, "H-Flex 8." It applies a structure that combines a shape-memory alloy coil and braiding, and divides the catheter into eight segments with different characteristics for each. The company said this allows the catheter to track well even in narrow, tortuous vessels while reducing kinking during procedures. A wide inner diameter also improves stability and efficiency during procedures.
Endventric plans to build a package of devices for neurovascular intervention by supplying Evoglide along with a "stent retriever" and a "balloon guide catheter." By performing key processes in-house, it also secured price competitiveness.
The company attracted investment from Premier Partners, Quad Asset Management, Korea Development Bank, UTC Investment, Bluepointpartners, Devsisters, Heungkuk Securities, Hanwha Investment & Securities, IPS Ventures, Jin & Partners, Shinhan Capital, and Kiwoom Securities.
Endventric is expanding its business scope to include cardiovascular and cardiac electrophysiology, in addition to neurovascular. Sales in 2024 grew about 2.5 times from the previous year, and the company is pushing into overseas markets, including the United States, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, with the commercialization of this product. It also plans to prepare for a listing.
Endventric co-CEOs Min Ji-young and Min Sung-woo said, "This will be an opportunity to demonstrate the competitiveness of domestic products in the neurovascular interventional medical device field, which has been highly dependent on overseas products," adding, "We will target the global market with products that are truly helpful in clinical settings."