HONG KONG ---- Venus MedTech (02500.HK), Qiming Venture Partners’ portfolio company, was listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong on December 10th, 2019, marking the first listed medical device company on the HKEx’s biotech sector.
The issue price of Venus MedTech is HKD 33. It opened at HKD 40. Venus’s IPO had been 312 times oversubscribed.
Qiming Venture Partners had been Venus’s largest institutional investor before it went public. Qiming started to invest in Venus in as early as 2013 and followed on its subsequent funding.
Nisa Leung, managing partner of Qiming Venture Partners, says that we believe that transcatheter heart valve technology is beneficial to people’s wellbeing.
As Venus MedTech continues to increase investment in technological innovation and strengthen R&D capabilities to develop new products, Leung believes that the company will continue to improve its competitiveness and is expected to become a global leader in structural heart.
Founded in 2009, Venus MedTech is a leading transcatheter heart valve medical device company in China. At present, Venus has a self-developed commercial product, and more than eight products are being developed or in the registration process.
Venus’s self-developed product, VenusA-Valve, is the first transcatheter aortic valve replacement (“TAVR”) product approved by the National Medical Products Administration (“NMPA”) and commercialized in China. According to Frost & Sullivan, Venus had a 79.3% market share in China by implantation volume of TAVR products in 2018.
Venus has first-mover advantages. Its comprehensive product pipeline covers all four heart valves, robust intellectual property portfolio with 193 issued patents and 196 patent applications. Venus has a visionary management team, which serves as high entry barriers and differentiates it from its peers.
Medicines and surgeries are available to treat valvular heart disease. However, medicines typically only relieve the symptoms temporarily without providing a long-lasting solution. Currently, valvular heart disease procedures are generally divided into three categories: traditional open-chest surgery, minimally invasive valve surgery and transcatheter valve therapy. Among the three types of procedures, transcatheter valve therapeutics (TVT) are similarly effective but safer than the other two alternatives. In 2000, Bonhoeffer successfully completed percutaneous pulmonary valve implantation (PPVI) for the first time, pioneering transcatheter heart valve replacement.
Entry barriers in the TVT market are relatively high, as a new entrant faces challenges such as the requirement to establish a comprehensive R&D platform and enhanced accessory package and their lack of experience in channel management and patent restrictions.
According to Frost & Sullivan analysis, the number of TAVR procedures conducted globally grew at a CAGR of 22.5% from 2014 to 2018 and is expected to further grow at a CAGR of 15.0% from 2018 to 2025. The number of eligible patients for TAVR in China grew from 656.8 thousand in 2014 to 742.1 thousand in 2018 and is expected to reach 942.8 thousand in 2025. Only 0.1% of eligible patients were treated with TAVR in 2018 and the penetration rate is expected to increase to 4.7% in 2025.
