WISE: Six Years After Its EIC Accelerator Grant, Spinal Lead Waits

Spinal cord stimulation blocks chronic pain with electrical pulses delivered by leads placed next to the spinal cord, and doctors have long had to choose between two kinds of lead. Flat multi-column paddles stimulate precisely but need open surgery; thin cylindrical leads go in through a needle but spread current less precisely and tend to migrate. WISE, a Milan-area company founded by physicists from the University of Milan, promised the European Union a lead that does both: a paddle that folds inside a needle and opens at the spinal cord.

In the EIC Accelerator pilot's March 2020 cut-off, WISE won an EU contribution of €2,318,013.25 for the project, called PercPad, towards a total cost of €3,311,447.50, according to CORDIS. The goal was to finish the device and "introduce it into market by the Q4 2022". The project ended in August 2022. In June 2026 the company said the money from its latest funding round would pay for the lead's "regulatory certification pathway and first-in-human study", according to MassDevice and Pulse 2.0. Six years after the award, the lead has neither.

Where WISE Stands Now

WISE is active. The company is registered as an active joint-stock company in Cologno Monzese, according to aziende.it and CompanyReports, which both draw on the Italian company register. On 17 June 2026 it announced the closing of an oversubscribed Series D round of €30 million. The round builds on a first close in June 2024 that combined venture debt from the European Investment Bank, backed by InvestEU, with equity from new investor Wallaby S.p.A. and existing investors New Frontier, Eureka! Venture and Indaco Ventures; ENEA Tech and Biomedical joined in 2026 as a strategic investor, according to MassDevice and Medical Device Network. One trade site, G-Medtech, describes the round as led by ENEA Tech and Biomedical; the other reports say it joined. Laura Iris Ferro, founder of the biotech company Gentium, became chair and Giuseppe Corvino joined the board.

The EIB signed its part on 6 June 2024: up to €15 million of venture debt for a €30 million programme, in a case where "the company would have no access to commercial debt", according to the EIB project page. When WISE announced the first close in July 2024, it valued the round at €25 million including the EIB loan and converted from an S.r.l. into an S.p.A., according to the company's press release and StartupBusiness. How the €30 million total splits between equity and debt is not public.

The Technology: A Paddle That Fits Through a Needle

WISE makes electrodes with what it calls Supersonic Technology: stretchable electronic circuits embedded in ultra-thin elastomer films, which it says conform to tissue better than the rigid metal contacts of conventional electrodes, according to MassDevice. The project report on CORDIS calls the underlying process "our patented SCBI technology"; supersonic cluster beam implantation was already the company's stated basis when it raised €3 million in 2015, led by Principia SGR, according to High-Tech Gründerfonds.

The spinal lead, first called SCS Expert and later Heron, is a multi-column paddle folded inside a catheter. It is pushed into the epidural space and unfolds at the treatment site. WISE says this gives the directional stimulation of a surgical paddle with the needle procedure of a cylindrical lead, and claims higher energy efficiency, better coverage and less migration. Those claims come from the company and its investors; no clinical data in humans has been published, because no human study has yet been run.

WISE's first product applies the same materials to the brain. The WISE Cortical Strip records and stimulates on the brain surface during tumour and epilepsy surgery. It received a CE mark in May 2021, according to BioSpace, and FDA 510(k) clearance on 22 November 2022 as K221123, according to the FDA 510(k) record and Healio. In July 2025 it became, by the company's account, the first cortical strip for intraoperative monitoring certified under the EU Medical Device Regulation, according to Il Sole 24 Ore and Medical Device Network.

What PercPad Promised, and What the Record Shows

PercPad ran from 1 September 2020 to 31 August 2022, after an SME Instrument Phase 1 feasibility study of the same name that received €50,000 in 2019, according to CORDIS. The European Commission's list of EIC Accelerator pilot winners names WISE SRL of Cologno Monzese as the only beneficiary of the project, grant only. WISE is not among the companies on the EIC Fund's list of invested companies, checked across all 17 pages for this article.

The final CORDIS report records real engineering work: four usability studies with neurosurgeons and pain specialists, a risk management plan, an optimised Heron design, cleaning, packaging and sterilisation processes, bench, biocompatibility and shelf-life testing, an animal study, and manufacturing processes "validated" for high-volume production. It says the full minimally invasive procedure was demonstrated, with images of the paddle unfolding in a sheep spine.

It also records the delay. The FDA asked for "an additional step" before the US submission; WISE completed it on 2 August 2022 but wrote that it was "not possible to predict how long the interaction with the FDA will take", so "the plan of commercialization starting from Q4 2022 has to be shifted accordingly". It blamed the COVID-19 slump in neuromodulation procedures for weaker market growth. Four years later, the June 2026 funding announcements still list certification and the first-in-human study as future steps, according to MassDevice and Pulse 2.0. Neither a CE certificate nor an FDA decision for the Heron lead could be found.

1. Complete development of the leadDeliveredDesign, bench, biocompatibility and animal testing reported on CORDIS.
2. Production processesDeliveredReported as validated for high-volume production.
3. Intellectual propertyDeliveredHERON trademark and an electrotherapy device patent application listed in the CORDIS results.
4. Regulatory approval (FDA, CE)Not achievedStill pending in June 2026.
5. Market launch by Q4 2022Not achievedNo launch announced; first-in-human study not yet run.
6. €36.2M gross profit within five years of launchNot achievedThe product has not launched.
7. Grow the team to 27 by end 2022Delivered36 expected by end 2022 per CORDIS; 50 in the 2024 accounts.

The Money

WISE has raised far more private money than the EU grant. Its €15 million Series C, led by CDP Venture Capital with Indaco Ventures and Eureka! Venture joining earlier investors, was announced on 1 October 2020, a month after PercPad began, and was meant partly to accelerate SCS Expert, according to High-Tech Gründerfonds. A later repost of the announcement, dated July 2021, gives the same amount and investors and mentions the €2.3 million EU grant. Regional and national aid adds to this: register data compiled by aziende.it from OpenCoesione lists €1,612,416 of EU cohesion funding for a project named SCS EXPERT, and a €1,207,620 grant from Regione Lombardia's Collabora&Innova measure in November 2025. These two figures come from a single compiled source and could not be checked against a second one.

The filed accounts show a company that is still spending to develop products. Its net loss grew every year, from €2,877 in 2019 to €3,653,373 in 2024, according to figures published by QN Top Aziende and aziende.it, and to €4,066,919 in 2025, with staff costs of €2,824,048, according to CompanyReports. The value of production, which includes income beyond sales, was €2,506,455 in 2024.

Revenue is small for a company whose brain electrode is sold in three markets. Reported revenue was €19,443 in 2022, €83,632 in 2023, €57,006 in 2024 and €128,376 in 2025, according to the same register summaries. WISE signed exclusive distributors for the cortical strip in Spain (Soinde Neuro, October 2023), Australia (Neuroclast, December 2023) and Germany and Austria (Axontronic, May 2024), according to its news page. Unit sales and customer numbers are not public.

Why Europe Should Care

The EIB justified its loan as a way to bring venture capital into a high-risk company and to strengthen Europe's position in medical technology, according to its project page. The market WISE wants to enter is concentrated: Medtronic held 29.8% of the US rechargeable spinal cord stimulation market in 2025, according to Medical Device Network. The EU's Medical Device Regulation also shapes the field: Ravagnan told Il Sole 24 Ore that certification under it is "much more difficult and expensive", and that some competitors could drop or delay recertification of their own devices. An implantable spinal lead faces the strictest version of that process, which helps explain why the PercPad timetable slipped.

The Verdict

WISE and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.