Materialise : Fluidda and Materialise Announce Partnership to Develop Personalized Solutions for Lung Patients

Materialise invests €2.5 million in Fluidda as part of a €4 million funding round

Leuven, Belgium - April 26, 2019. Fluidda announces a new phase in its collaboration with Materialise (NASDAQ: MTLS), to expand personalized treatment options in the respiratory care, building on its image based software. As part of the partnership, Materialise invests €2.5 million in Fluidda and Wilfried Vancraen, founder and CEO of Materialise, will join the board of directors at Fluidda.

The companies want to collaborate more closely to accelerate the development of personalized solutions in pulmonology. Fluidda's proprietary imaging technology, Functional Respiratory Imaging (FRI) based on airflow monitoring, combines CT scan images with computer based flow simulations, allowing for a better visualization of airflows in lung patients. By combining this with the experience of Materialise in medical 3D printing and planning, both companies want to develop more personalized solutions that can help the growing number of patients suffering from COPD, asthma, and other respiratory diseases.

As part of the partnership, Materialise led a 4mio EUR funding round with a 2.5mio EUR investment. Fluidda will use part of these resources to accelerate this joint development of a treatment solution that can support clinicians to help patients with a personalized regional treatment, based upon the FRI technology.

Wilfried Vancraen, founder and CEO of Materialise, will join the board of directors at Fluidda. He brings 30 years of experience as entrepreneur in 3D printing and personalized approaches in the medical field.

'We are very excited and proud to enter into this new phase of partnership with Materialise. We share the vision that the medical field, and particularly respiratory healthcare imaging needs to evolve towards personalized, precision medicine through a value-based healthcare approach. We are confident that advanced imaging techniques, such as our Functional Respiratory Imaging methods, can add value in this regard.'

Jan De Backer, CEO of Fluidda

Wilfried Vancraen, CEO of Materialise, states: 'Fluidda was one of the first users of the pulmonology features of the Materialise Mimics software suite and it is a nice example of how new technologies for healthcare diagnostics are being developed in collaboration with Materialise's expertise in medical engineering. With this partnership we can help even more patients, bringing the possibilities of 3D printing and planning to the pulmonology market.'