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Initial idea

In oncology the choices for treatments are between surgery, radio-therapy and/or chemiotherapy. Due to the important side effects encountered with these treatments, less aggressive alternatives have emerged such as laparoscopiy, conformational and interstitial radio-therapy, thermoablative techniques using heat or cold.

Following this trend CERMA has developped an innovative technique of injection under high pressure (Targeted Multi Therapy = TMT) that are patented. It is based on a tiny microtube allowing to deliver the active agents directly in the lesion. The main features of the system are :

1. The active agents is delivered to the core of the lesion through the micro tube (see pictures)
2. The release of the agent is performed under high pressure, allowing very fast treatments
3. The micro tube may stay inserted in the tissues for iterative treatments if necessary
4. Through the same micro tube, several active agents can be used allowing multitherapies approach

scan of the liver scan of the liver scan of the liver

Exploiting the multi-capabilities offered by the TMT technique, several applications have been settled up : Oncosteam (thermal treatment), chemotherapy and brachytherapy. In chemotherapy an application was developped to test an apoptotic agent elaboratedat the University of Lyon. Therefore, the TMT technique is at the crossroad allowing the combined treatments providing the best synergetic outcome.

Going astray from the initial focus which was oncology, an unexpected application surfaced : the treatement of the varicose veins.
This drove to create a special entity: CERMAVEIN. This was a successful story and in 2016, 23 partners were distributing the product in more than 50 clinical centers. The main reason for this move : The interest of investors. for this specific domain. Strange enough, cancer, from the pure investment is not attractive with the reason mostly mentionned: " return on investment too long".

Knowing that, the company concentrated its efforts to make money with the veins to be able to internally financing the oncology applications.