IPO
Silk Road Medical debuted on the NASDAQ on Thursday (ticker: SILK), pricing at $20 per share, the high end of its range, and raising a total of $120 million. The stock’s value also climbed 80% during its first day trading, with a market cap topping $1 billion. Among the investors is The Vertical Group, where our Senior Advisor Richard Emmitt is a General Partner and co-founder. Silk Road was co-founded by Vertical Group General Partner Tony Chou, M.D., who also serves on the Board of Directors alongside Vertical Group General Partner Jack Lasersohn.
Silk Road developed the ENROUTE Neuroprotection and Stent System to enable a stroke prevention procedure called TransCarotid Artery Revascularization (TCAR). Early development of the product was led by Dr. Chou and took place at a Vertical Group incubator space in Palo Alto. The treatment is used to reduce stroke risk in patients with carotid artery disease and is an alternative to carotid endarterectomy (CEA), a common surgical treatment for patients with this condition. During the TCAR procedure, a sheath is placed into the carotid artery and attached to a system that allows blood flow to be reversed, away from the brain, and the blood to be filtered before being returned to the body via a second sheath in the femoral vein; this flow reversal and filtering process is designed to prevent bits of plaque dislodged during balloon angioplasty and stenting from reaching the brain. Once the stent is placed, flow reversal is turned off, and blood resumes its normal flow pattern.
In its pivotal and continued access study published in the Journal of Vascular Surgery in 2016, TCAR was shown to be associated with a 1.4% overall risk of stroke, the lowest reported to date for a multi-center, prospective carotid stenting trial. TCAR offers a smaller incision and less risk of cranial nerve injury, among other benefits.
The company reported $35 million in sales for 2018.
Posted: April 05, 2019
