Stéphane Avril: When biomedical research crosses paths with entrepreneurship

Stéphane Avril, Biomechanics professor at Mines Saint-Etienne, is exploring the route of entrepreneurship to take his research work to the next level. In co-founding PrediSurge in 2017 and then KaomX in 2024, he has been creating start-ups to take innovations from the laboratory into the economic sphere. Between technology, filing patents and improving technology readiness, let’s take a look back over his achievements as a researcher-entrepreneur.

In brief:

Stéphane Avril believes that entrepreneurship is crucial in adding value to research.
The researcher founded PrediSurge in 2017 and has been developing the business ever since.
He has just co-founded a new start-up, KaomX, which is developing a mechanical control device for biomaterials.

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# Biomecanics

# Mines Saint-Etienne

# Stéphane Avril

Stéphane Avril.

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Stéphane Avril, the mechanics of human tissue

An idea that becomes a start-up

PrediSurge was created from a desire to improve the safety of endovascular stent grafting, a surgical procedure that is carried out to prevent an aneurysm from rupturing. Some of these stents can behave in unpredictable ways, which can cause complications during surgery. The proposed solution is a tool to assist surgeons in choosing the right stent graft, adapted to the patient and graft location, prior to surgery. With this in mind, Stéphane Avril, along with vascular surgeon Jean-Noël Albertini, and their PhD student David Perrin, developed three-dimensional digital twin technology using medical imaging data.

But the project wasn’t mature enough to be able to offer services to clinicians. It was therefore developed at the Mines Saint-Etienne incubation facility. PrediSurge was eventually co-founded in 2017 by Jean-Noël Albertini, David Perrin and Stéphane Avril, with support from Alban Molle, with the project showcasing the research work carried out at the school.

The team then took part in various competitions and fundraisers to finance the necessary improvements in technology readiness, as well as winning the PÉPITE Prize and the Concours Docteurs-Entrepreneurs in 2017, and then the Concours i-Lab 2018. In 2022, the start-up was the laureate of the European EIC (European Innovation Council) Accelerator program. This program provides funding for ‘high potential and high risk’ innovation projects and accompanies them in marketing their technology.

Protecting innovation with patents

As PrediSurge was under development, patents were filed to protect the innovations, with support from Institut Mines-Telecom (IMT). Each patent filed was presented to a specialized commission with representatives from each school. Stéphane Avril was grateful for the quality of strategic advice provided by Mines Saint-Etienne in this field, as well as how proactive both the establishment and the group were in assisting them. “IMT was highly reactive in adding an exclusive license of use and purchasing option to the patent”, says the researcher.

This type of license grants the licensee – in this case, PrediSurge – the sole right to use the technology in question, and the possibility of purchasing it in the future. For the duration of the agreement, only the licensee is authorized to exploit the patent, while the purchasing option allows the licensee to test the profitability of the innovation, and then purchase the patent at a later date, in accordance with predefined terms and conditions. For the licensor (holder of the patent, in this case, IMT), this generates revenue and adds value to the patent while retaining the option open to sell it if the licensee decides to purchase it. “It’s a win-win situation”, says Stéphane Avril.

Stéphane Avril, researcher at Mines Saint-Etienne.

Simulation of the aorta created by PrediSurge.

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Stéphane Avril
Mines Saint-Étienne

The importance of moving up the trl scale

PrediSurge now has a new CEO, Bruno Virieux, boasts 25 employees, has filed 12 patents and has generated more than 1,500 digital twin aortas. To reach that level, it was necessary to climb the technology readiness scale (TRL).

The TRL (Technology Readiness Level) scale is a method to estimate the maturity of technology, ranging from the initial idea to fully operational technology. There are 9 levels, with each one representing a stage in technological development, from laboratory-based research to tests in real conditions.

With this scale, researchers, developers and investors can assess the progress made and associated risks for technology before it is marketed or put into operation. “It is essential to move up the TRL scale if projects are to be rolled-out”, says Stéphane Avril, who highlights the importance of knowing how to position innovation on the right scale, and then move up the scale until the technology can be marketed.

The entrepreneur strikes again with KaomX

Stéphane Avril may not have an operational role in PrediSurge, but he is involved in research and development projects and he considers them to be “success stories, not only for entrepreneurship, but also for Mines Saint-Etienne”. He admits having caught entrepreneurship fever. And KaomX is yet another example of this, created in January 2024. For this project, Stéphane Avril was awarded an ERC Proof of Concept grant, which helped fund the transfer of technology from the imaging technique used for a previous project, Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), to the creation of the start-up. Using this technique, he was able to map the elasticity around cells in living tissue, and the start-up aims to exploit this technology to characterize hydrogels, polymer gels used in contact lenses, surgical implants and bioprinting, for example.

The Technology Readiness Level scale applies here too. The ultimate goal is to produce a device that resembles a laboratory microscope, in which a sample of hydrogel can be inserted to characterize its components and viscoelastic properties. To take this technology up the scale, Stéphane Avril is preparing an application for EIC Transition grant funding, with support from IMT. “The demonstrator model is currently being improved, we still need to quantify and define the market… We’re in the early stages”, says the researcher-entrepreneur, while admitting that his new technology has already sparked a lot of interest. Could this be the next success story?

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