Our vision is to become the leader of the smart implant revolution of the future: Dr. Peter Forsell (of Implantica AG) said while speaking with The Silicon Review

“We have more than 300 inventions and have selected more than 40 products in the pipeline, most of them based on the platform technologies, but some are totally passive like RefluxStop^®.”

The gap between available medical implant products and patient needs is often significant. Technology has developed at high speed outside the body; however, these advancements have not reached inside the body.

Driven by a desire to fill this gap, combined with selling his very successful adjustable gastric band business to Johnson & Johnson for a substantial amount of money, Dr. Peter Forsell reinvested the money and established Implantica.

Implantica is a medtech company dedicated to moving advanced technology into the body with the bold ambition to potentially transform care for millions of patients around the world.

The company was established in 2015.

The Silicon Review reached out to Dr. Forsell, and here’s what he had to say.

Interview Highlights

Setbacks are a part of every growing business. Tell us about a few roadblocks and learning lessons that helped Implantica grow through the years.

My prior experiences have taught me well. Every technology I developed and launched in the past has its unique challenges. At Implantica, the journey of our first commercially available product, RefluxStop^®, is no different. We launched RefluxStop^® commercially at the end of 2018, just before the start of Covid-19.

At the beginning of 2020, most hospitals discontinued doing elective procedures, and our whole world changed overnight. This severely impacted our ability to access the key markets.

The good news is that we were able to sustain and use this downtime to work on market development activities and further advance our overall business strategy. We are very happy that most of the restrictions during Covid-19 have been lifted now allowing us to make tremendous progress in implementing our market access and commercialization plans.

Q. As a medtech company, how does Implantica address unmet medical needs? What are its key focus areas?

Implantica is all about changing the world to become a better place for patients at the core and society at large. With over 15 years of extensive research and development work, with management located in the heart of Switzerland along with subsidiaries and key partners in the US, Sweden, and many other countries, Implantica has been at the forefront of disrupting the field of smart medical implants and eHealth technologies with an initial focus on urology and digestive surgery.

At Implantica, we develop world-changing novel medical treatments. Our first commercial product, RefluxStop^®, is a profoundly simple yet incredibly ingenious and unique solution to treat the root cause of Acid Reflux that impacts more than one billion people worldwide. RefluxStop^® is the first implantable medical device that truly restores and maintains the normal physiology of the body, known as the anti-reflux barrier. In such a short time, we are very proud to have won the trust of some of the best Anti-Reflux Surgeons in the world. The product has already created a huge impact on the lives of patients in Switzerland, Germany, and the UK among others and we believe this is just the beginning of a global movement.

Beyond RefluxStop^®, Implantica is simultaneously working on developing a diverse product pipeline of groundbreaking smart medical implants. Our vision is to become the leader of the smart implant revolution of the future.

Technology and innovation are critical. Advanced technology has changed our daily lives and is at the heart of what we do. New smart medical implants previously seen as unachievable become viable with our innovative wireless energizing and eHealth platforms. Individual product patents comprising 1000 patent cases support Implantica’s ability to change healthcare fundamentally.

Q. What more can you tell us about RefluxStop^®? What are its benefits?

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) affects more than a billion people worldwide, it’s a massive patient population that is largely underserved and outcomes are moderate to poor for many sub-segments of the advanced-stage population. RefluxStop^® received CE mark approval on August 8, 2018, based on the strength of a multi-center clinical investigation in which the safety and effectiveness of the device in patients were demonstrated. This innovative technology has all the attributes to cause a paradigm shift in anti-reflux surgical treatment. RefluxStop’s unique mechanism of action differentiates it from the standard of care and current surgical solutions. This is because traditional methods focus on the Lower Esophageal Sphincter (LES) and encircle the food passageway to support the closing ring muscle.

RefluxStop^® is a non-active implant that is placed on the upper part of the stomach through minimally invasive laparoscopic (keyhole) surgery.

The RefluxStop^® mechanism of action addresses all three components of the anti-reflux barrier that when compromised could result in acid reflux. RefluxStop^® restores and supports the natural physiology of the body without encircling the food passageway, making side effects generally experienced from procedures and devices that encircle the food passageway rare.

The company believes that RefluxStop^® has all the attributes to become the new standard of care for acid reflux treatment as supported by the clinical trial results.

Q. Can you introduce us to your other products and services? What are their primary features?

Beyond RefluxStop^®, Implantica is simultaneously working on the development of a diverse product pipeline of groundbreaking smart medical implants.

I realized that there is a huge gap in available medical device products and potential patient needs that could be met with technologically advanced treatment solutions. To address these unmet needs, we developed two platform technologies — a wireless energizing platform to charge a battery directly through intact skin and allowing for remote controlled action, and then also an eHealth platform to be able to measure how the treatment is going, measure various parameters from inside the body and send them to the caregiver. The health care provider should be able to view the patient’s measurements and also readjust the treatment and change the treatment from a distance. We then spent years to see how we could improve healthcare with these platform technologies. We went through treatment field after treatment field, looked at all the existing patents, and all the existing treatments to see how we can improve them.

After performing market analysis, product analysis, prototyping, and so on a three-year process — we managed to create an enormous number of patents, more than 1,000 patent cases. We have more than 300 inventions and have selected more than 40 products in the pipeline, most of them based on the platform technologies, but some are totally passive like RefluxStop^®. There are many treatment fields, like acid reflux, for example, where we are able to improve treatment without the need for a complicated electrical implant, just a novel passive medical implant.

Q. How do you see Implantica changing in five years, and how do you see yourself creating that change?

Implantica’s top objectives for the next coming years include rapid market access and commercial expansion of RefluxStop^® therapy in key European markets, filing the PMA with the FDA to get approval in the U.S, paving the path forward for worldwide expansion (e.g. Japan, Canada, etc.) and last but not the least, advancing our product portfolio of eHealth based smart implant solutions. These are my main goals for Implantica. While all goals are important for the long-term, the critical milestone I would like us to stay focused on is establishing market access for RefluxStop^® in the US and key international markets (Germany, the UK, etc.).

Dr. Peter Forsell | Founder & CEO

Dr. Peter Forsell is the founder, principal shareholder and CEO of Implantica. He is a world-renowned surgeon and the brain behind Implantica’s patent and development work. Dr. Forsell was the Executive Chairman of Obtech Medical AG, the team’s previous successful medical technology business which commercialized the SAGB, an adjustable gastric band to treat obesity that Dr. Forsell developed.

He is the inventor and originator of most of Implantica’s products and has a large patent portfolio of 1000 patent cases. Dr. Forsell is a surgery specialist, and he obtained his medical degree at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He has also studied basic law, tax, and finance.