Polares Medical has secured $50m through a Series C financing round to further support the development of its novel cardiac transcatheter implant, MRace, for patients with mitral regurgitation (MR).
With the funding, Polares will support the advancement of ongoing clinical trials evaluating MRace in the US, Europe and Australia.
This oversubscribed round saw participation from DC Global Ventures and Lumination Partners, as well as existing and a new, undisclosed investor.
The MRace implant acts by reinstating the activity of the posterior leaflet, which is one of two key pieces of tissue in the mitral valve that prevent the backflow of blood from the left ventricle to the left atrium. If left untreated, severe MR can lead to potentially fatal heart rhythm disturbances, stroke and hypertension. A 2025 paper published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine estimates that the global prevalence of moderate-to-severe MR is 0.67%.
According to Polares’ CEO, Jacques Essinger, posterior leaflet replacement represents “a new chapter in transcatheter mitral therapy”, which has traditionally centred around either open-heart surgery or transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (TEER) in moderate-to-severe cases.
While TEER procedures have had a transformative impact on the MR treatment landscape, this method can prove challenging to implement on a wide scale due to the variation in the anatomical shape of the mitral valve between patients. MRace is designed to overcome this hurdle through a design that Polares says could be more suitable “across a broad spectrum of mitral anatomies”.
In a 3 March statement, Polares noted that it is particularly focused on treating patients with secondary MR, which is observed when a normal mitral valve’s leaflets leak due to an issue with either the left ventricle or the atrium.
A look at the mitral valve repair market
As a large proportion of the global population ages, MR is becoming increasingly common, meaning a growing number of patients are requiring treatment for this condition.
Currently, Abbott Vascular’s MitraClip TEER system is one of the dominant forces on the mitral valve device market. The MitraClip is currently on its fifth generation, which Abbott launched in August 2025.
Looking to challenge this dominance alongside Polares is Cardiac Dimensions, which secured $53m through a Series E financing round in 2025 to support its ongoing pivotal trial evaluating its mitral valve repair device, the Carillion Mitral Contour System.
A recent report from GlobalData estimates that the transcatheter heart valves market across the EU5 (Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK) will be worth $7.3m in 2033.
