Suneva Medical raises $35M for skin treatments
Suneva Medical, a San Diego aesthetics company with executive offices in Santa Barbara, has raised $35 million in debt and equity financing, bringing its total funding to $70.5 million over the past two years.
The deal announced Jan. 9 includes $15 million in loans and working capital lines and a $20 million second round of equity financing. All told, the company has raised $55.5 million in equity and $70.5 million total over the past two years, according to a Business Times analysis.
“This funding is a vote of confidence in the Suneva team and strategy, giving us the financial platform upon which to execute our vision to build a profitable and dynamic aesthetics company,” CEO Nick Teti said in a statement. Suneva officials weren’t immediately available for comment.
The company currently sells ArteFill, a smile-line and wrinkle treatment that it is hoping to also use in the treatment of acne scars, along with several other skin-related products. Suneva was formed in 2009 by private equity firm HealthCare Royalty Partners when it purchased the assets of Artes Medical, a publicly traded company, out of bankruptcy.
Since then, the investors have been pumping money into the company. They hired Teti, the former CEO of Inamed Corp., the Santa Barbara breast implant and Lap-Band obesity device maker that was sold to Allergan in 2006 in a $3.2 billion deal.
Last year, Teti told the Business Times that while mass production would stay in San Diego, he was planning to build out many of the executive operations on the South Coast. “Probably the best place anywhere, where there’s the most experienced aesthetics talent, is in Santa Barbara,” he told the newspaper last year. “We were able to staff this place with a management team with very significant experience.”
Suneva quickly assembled a team of industry veterans, Teti told the Business Times last year. Chief Financial Officer Joseph Newcomb was formerly general counsel both at Inamed and Mentor, which became part of Johnson & Johnson in a transaction valued at $1 billion. Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Nicola Selley came from the team that secured approval for the Lap-Band at Inamed in addition approvals at other firms.
“The proven track record of Suneva’s management team, coupled with its product distribution partnerships and product portfolio, create a compelling future for the company,” Todd Davis, the founding managing director of investor HealthCare Royalty Partners, said in a statement.
Private equity firm Polaris Partners led the equity round, and one of its managing directors, Brian Chee, will join Suneva’s board of directors. An affiliate of HealthCare Royalty Partners took part in the equity round and also provided the growth-capital term loan. The working capital line came from Comerica Bank.
