Johannesburg - South African Breweries (SAB) announced its investment of R30 million in start-up LIQID Medical, a medical device development company pioneering a new class of sight-saving ocular implants.
The executive director of the SAB Foundation, Bridgit Evans, said the foundation was proud to be one of the first in the country to use its endowment for impact investment.
“The aim of this is to leverage traditional capital pools toward solutions that address key socio-economic challenges of inequality, unemployment and poverty,” Evans said.
“The SAB Foundation was set up as part of the South African Breweries’ BEE empowerment scheme and receives dividends bi-annually,” she explained. The foundation will be using funds from those investments to fund the deal, which will represent a significant shareholding in this business.
Cape Town-based technology hub LIQID Medical was awarded R1.3m as the winner of the foundation’s annual Disability Empowerment Award in 2019, which they used to conduct their first human trials with promising results.
The founder of LIQID Medical, Dr Daemon McClunan, said the devices have been designed to harness a naturally occurring anatomical mechanism to provide the potential for the most clinically effective, cost-saving and quality-of-life-improving solutions for glaucoma, the leading cause of blindness.
The investment of R9.5m from the Technology and Innovation Agency of South Africa and the R30m equity funding investment from the SAB Foundation is earmarked for technology development, regulatory accreditation, clinical trials, and IP portfolio development over three years.
LIQID Medical developed three patented glaucoma implants, each designed to fill three clearly defined gaps in the market, which will be manufactured in South Africa. The three devices are the OptiShunt, iPortVR and IFlow. McClunan is an eye specialist who has been working on the development of these devices since 2015.
He said their goal was to be “commercialised ready” by the end of the funding tranche.
“Commercialisation, followed by launch to market, is expected three years after the investment. This is driven by the company concluding further clinical trials and securing international regulatory approvals within the target period,” he said.
At the moment the most effective way of treating glaucoma is draining excess fluid from the eye via a traditional drainage pathway by the implantation of a tube-shunt device.
Evans said the SAB Foundation's ultimate objective was to support social innovators to develop their businesses, which would in turn boost the local economy and create jobs.
“As a foundation, we are so committed to improving the quality of life for people with disabilities and excited about the possibilities that this new technology holds in preventing blindness,” Evans said.