Episurf Medical: Case getting stronger by the day – DNB

Yesterday, the company announced that the rights issue announced earlier this year has been completed. In our view, the company is clearly moving in the right direction with the financing being the last piece of the puzzle. In early 2020, it has released strong clinical data supporting the implant system, and now the financial situation is secured until 2022. In total, the company has raised cSEK140m before costs.

More and more clinical data has emerged during H1 2020. As we have pointed out before, clinical data is a prerequisite for a successful launch of a new implant system. Over the past months we have seen several press releases highlighting new data that supports the use of the Episealer system in patients with local cartilage injuries in the knee. We believe that the data seen in recent months points in the same direction, indicating that a patient-specific small implant is superior to both biological treatment and to total knee replacements.

The financial situation has improved making it possible for the company to execute on the strategy overall. With the rights issue in hand, the company has raised cSEK140m this year. This should be sufficient to take the company well into 2022 and also to secure the completion of the large IDE trial in the US, the EPIC-knee trial. In addition the company recently announced that it had received ethics committee approval for all European sites to be included in the IDE trial. Hence there will be patients recruited in Denmark, Germany and the UK in addition to the US patients in the trial.

The Talus implant approved in Europe in early 2020. As we have highlighted before, the product portfolio was recently enlarged by the approval in Europe of the Talus implant. This was positive but we also believe that the launch will be relatively slow as it is a complicated procedure.

Covid-19 will affect the operations. As for all other companies, the current pandemic seen across the world will affect Episurf Medical as well. In countries most affected by the pandemic we have seen the healthcare system postpone elective surgeries and prioritise to build out ICU capacity. Episurf’s procedures all fall in the category of elective procedures; hence we should expect a clear negative impact on the company’s sales.

Our fair value assessment for Episurf is SEK1.6–4.3.

Link to research:
https://www.dnb.no/seg-fundamental/fundamentalweb/GetReports.aspx?file=CMPSP_153834.pdf&Sid=1-7XT0MIJcrf