EIB Provides €20 Million in Financing to SamanTree Medical for Real-Time Microscopy for Surgical Procedures

EIB-funding will accelerate development of the Histolog® Scanner and reinforce commercialisation efforts across Europe and United States

SamanTree Medical, a European leader in surgical imaging innovation, has secured €20 million in financing from the European Investment Bank (EIB). The operation is backed by InvestEU, the EU’s flagship program to mobilize over €372 billion in additional investment from 2021 to 2027.

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The European Investment Bank (EIB) provides €20 million in financing to SamanTree Medical, a leader in surgical imaging innovation. The financing supports the development of an advanced confocal microscopy scanner for rapid imaging of the internal microstructure of tissue samples during surgical procedures, R&D and continued development and advancement of the company's Histolog® Scanner, the first and only medical imaging device featuring massively parallel confocal microscopy. Shown: Alessandro Izzo, EIB Director (left) and Olivier Delporte, CEO of SamanTree Medical (right).

The financing supports the development of an advanced confocal microscopy scanner for rapid imaging of the internal microstructure of tissue samples during surgical procedures. Furthermore, the financing will support SamanTree Medical’s research, development and innovative activities, including continued development and advancement of its Histolog® Scanner

The EIB financing is provided through the Bank’s Venture Debt Instrument and is designed to support highly innovative companies undertaking research-intensive development activities.

“The support of the European Investment Bank represents an important milestone for SamanTree,” said Olivier Delporte, CEO of SamanTree Medical. “This financing allows us to accelerate development of the Histolog Scanner and expand our commercial presence across Europe and the United States. The rigorous due diligence process undertaken by the EIB reflects the importance of our innovative technology, our development plan and our long-term vision for advancing real-time, high-resolution imaging for excised tissue.”

“Our investment in SamanTree Medical reflects the EIB’s long-standing commitment to advancing medical innovation across Europe,” said EIB Director Alessandro Izzo. “By supporting med‑tech companies through venture debt, a tool that helps entrepreneurs accelerate growth and bring cutting-edge technologies to patients sooner, we make sure that key medical tech companies can grow and thrive in Europe. Supporting innovators like SamanTree Medical is central to our mission of driving positive impact for patients and healthcare systems.”

The advanced technique of the Histolog Scanner enables it to capture nearly 30,000 images simultaneously, rather than one at a time, producing high-resolution, histology-like images in approximately one minute without damaging the specimen. This allows surgeons and pathologists to image tissue within minutes and determine whether abnormal cellular microstructures remain at the surgical site, while patients remain on the operating table. Used in more than 6,000 patients to date, physicians using the Histolog Scanner have demonstrated compelling results across multiple tissue types. In breast-conserving surgery, the SHIELD study showed that when physicians used the Histolog images for assessment, reoperation rates were lowered from 30% to 10%, a 67% reduction.

Research has also shown that Histolog is similar¹ when compared to intraoperative frozen-section analysis (the gold standard) for prostatectomies, while offering substantial time savings. Using Histolog for imaging and interpretation takes approximately 5-20 minutes, compared with 45-60 minutes for frozen section analysis.² Using the Histolog images, physicians have also demonstrated a sensitivity ranging from 73% - 91% and a specificity ranging from 91% to 100%, when compared to conventional pathology.^1,2,3 Additionally, studies have shown that intraoperative assessment allows surgeons to opt for more nerve-sparing surgeries, significantly reducing erectile dysfunction, a common side effect of a radical prostatectomy.⁴

Background

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the long-term lending institution of the European Union, owned by its Member States.

Headquartered in Liège, Belgium, SamanTree Medical is a privately held company dedicated to improving oncologic surgery through innovative imaging solutions.

¹https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39403832/
²https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36440864/
³IP8-FLUORESCE: A Prospective Paired Cohort Study Evaluating the Diagnostic Accuracy of Fluorescence Confocal Microscopy for Real-time Assessment of Surgical Margins in Radical Prostatectomy - PubMed
⁴https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(25)00091-9/fulltext

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