Jean Boulle Group Receives US$47 million Cash Investment from a New Major Strategic Investor in its Proprietary VDYNE Technology - Set to Disrupt the Market for Heart Valve Replacement

Luxembourg 24 October 2022 - The Jean Boulle Group (“the Group”) is pleased to announce a US$47 million cash investment (“the Investment”) in Jean Boulle Medtech’s proprietary VDYNE heart valve technology from a new major strategic investor.

The proceeds of the Investment will be used to accelerate human clinical trials of VYDNE’s novel prosthetic tricuspid valve which is minimally invasive due to its delivery via a transfemoral catheter and which is completely repositionable and retrievable. As a result, the VDYNE system is expected to disrupt the market for tricuspid heart valve replacement in humans.

VDYNE is now the second heart valve technology company founded by the Group to have attracted a multibillion-dollar medical technology company as a strategic investor. The first related to the sale of Tendyne™ to Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) for US$250 million in cash plus future payments of US$ 150 million tied to regulatory milestones. The details of the Financing and identity of the new strategic investor in VDYNE remain confidential.

The Group, via Jean Boulle Medtech Ltd., is a founder and lead investor in early-stage medical technologies, with a particular track record in the development of applications for use in cardiology. As the lead investor, Jean Boulle Medtech has repeatedly attracted significant co-investment to develop technologies that help save or improve quality of life. Jean Boulle Medtech helps to build scientific teams and undertake clinical trials, that advance new medtech applications to commercial viability. Thereafter, they are typically acquired by multinational medical devices and health care companies.

Commenting on the announcement Jean-Raymond Boulle II, Director of Jean Boulle Medtech and VDYNE, said:

“Today’s announcement is a strong endorsement of the progress made by the VDYNE team and of its innovative technology. I welcome the new investor’s vision in helping to address the significant potential to treat a heart condition affecting a global population.

“Success at VYDNE demonstrates our Group’s persistence in making discoveries in novel medical technologies, as well as in attracting significant co-investment, just as it has done successfully across a range of commercial and philanthropic sectors over several decades.”

VDYNE’s innovative technology addresses tricuspid valve regurgitation, a condition whereby the heart can become enlarged because blood leaks back into the right atrium when the right ventricular contracts.  The right ventricle’s primary responsibility is to pump blood towards the lungs for re-oxygenation, but impaired functionality of the tricuspid valve causes the back flow of blood into the right atrium. Surgical intervention to treat tricuspid regurgitation has high rates of mortality and morbidity. There are presently no approved minimally invasive valve replacement treatment alternatives.