Since its founding in 2017, Ciliatech has attracted significant corporate and public support, enabling its founders to create a fundamental shift in an operational procedure that may:
There remains a high need to treat this disease, which globally, affects 76 million people per year3.
While trabeculectomy remains the ‘Gold Standard’ surgical approach to treating glaucoma, the technique is more than 50-years old. Although it tends to consistently reduce reduces IOP to below 15 mmHg, it may also generate numerous medical complications that are quite often critical – relating mainly to associated need for bleb management.
Today, technological evolutions in materials and design, and our greater understanding of pathological and physiological environments, demand a more advanced approach, similar to the level of progress that has been made in treating cataracts.
Ciliatech has sought to create this higher level of performance in glaucoma surgery by developing a new class of implant that addresses the need to treat glaucoma durably and with minimal adverse effects.
UI Investissement is an independent management company specializing in the development of companies. It manages around €1.5 billion in assets and invests with more than 300 portfolio companies in sectors that are essential to society, such as healthcare, agri-business, services and industry. The investment teams dedicated to innovation capital deploy funds that enable the emergence of innovative projects and high-potential disruptive technologies in the tech and healthcare sectors by providing financing, advice and support. Expansion and buyout capital, the historical core of UI’s business, accounts for more than half of assets under management, enabling more than 50 companies to benefit from the operational expertise and methodological tools developed by UI. Finally, UI also invests in projects aimed at strengthening economic initiatives in local areas. UI currently has more than 80 employees and more than 10 regional offices in Besançon, Clermont-Ferrand, Dijon, Lille, Limoges, Lyon, Nantes, Orléans, Reims, Rennes, Strasbourg, in addition to its teams in Paris.
BNP Paribas Développement, an autonomous subsidiary of the international banking group BNP Paribas, has its own funds for more than 30 years invested to support the development of SMEs and mid-sized companies and ensures their sustainability by facilitating their transfer, as a minority shareholder.
Since 2016, we have also supported startups with high growth potential, which offer uses or the creation of new technology thanks to our Venture team.
The Venture capital portfolio is composed of 16 Healthtech startups including medtech and digital health companies.
After his graduation in ophthalmology, Dr Bernard Chauvin started to work in medical and research in the family owned Laboratoire Chauvin specialised in ophthalmic drugs.
Then after taking over the management of the company during a period of 20 years Laboratoire Chauvin became a major ophthalmic player in Europe in prescription, OTC and surgical devices, and was eventually acquired by Bausch and Lomb in 2000.
Dr Chauvin then entered as investor and member of the board of multiple ophthalmic ventures.
Dr Chauvin also participated to Eyegate a drug delivery device to facilitate eyedrop penetration, and Lumithera a US company developing a device for dry macular oedema acquired by Alcon in 2025.
1 SAFARI-I, SAFARI-II & SAFARI-III Clinical Trials; Ciliatech SAS, Data on File, August 2024
2 2023 Glaucoma Surgical Device Market Report – Global analysis for 2022 to 2028
3 Global Prevalence of Glaucoma and Projections of Glaucoma Burden through 2040 – A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, Tham et al, Ophthalmology Volume 121, Number 11, November 2014
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